


Neither Independent nor Serious

by ChibiSquirt



Series: Switch-verse [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Steve, Alpha Tony, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Artist Steve Rogers, Bastardized Versions of Drinking Games, Because some people can't get drunk, But they may just be faking everybody out, F/M, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, M/M, Omega Tony, Polyamory, Possible Sam/Natasha, Shoes, Too much fun had writing this, Wanda/Vision if you don't blink, Which you shouldn't 'cause they're cute, Yes those tags are right, anthropomorphic animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-11 02:56:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 33,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7024537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChibiSquirt/pseuds/ChibiSquirt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Steve doesn’t think it’s unreasonable of him to be alarmed by Tony’s disclosure, because Tony's his teammate.  </em>
</p><p>  <em>It isn’t unheard of for a man to switch his dynamic; it mostly happens in cases of high stress, when the hormones produced would instigate either an advance to or a retreat from the extreme ends of the spectrum.  Plenty of soldiers he'd known had gone off to battle as Betas and come home Alphas; a few came home Omegas, instead, and back before the days of suppressants, they got an honorable discharge.  </em></p><p><em>But no one goes straight from Omega to Alpha, or, for that matter, the reverse, which means that Tony has to have changed dynamic not once, but twice.  And that </em>is <em>rare.  </em></p><p>COMPLETE</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which a skunk visits the Great Wall of China

**Author's Note:**

> Me: Okay, better get back to that B&VB fic, two more chapters to go...  
> Brain: You know what are awesome? ABO dynamics! You should write some of that!  
> Me: No, because a) ABO is usually a squick for me, and b) I should work on the fic I'm already committed to...  
> Brain: No, seriously, you know how you've been secretly plotting how you would sculpt it if you were writing the ABO fic? What if you DO that?  
> Me: I don't think anyone wants to read that. And, there's this other fic -  
> Me: Although, if I DID write it, I could work in my theory that the only Steve Rogers who isn't an Alpha is the one who's too low-Testosterone to develop...  
> Brain: Dooo iiiiiiiit!  
> Me: And I could set it between AoU and Civil War, and feature Wanda a lot because she's awesome...  
> Brain: DOOOOOO EEEEEET!

“Never have I ever… entered an Omega heat shelter,” Clint smirks, and around the table - a table currently seating precisely zero Omegas - people begin raising their glasses.  “Okay, _what?”_

Natasha, he supposes, he should have seen coming.  There’s a list of places that he can expect Nat never to go, but an Omega heat shelter is hardly one of them.  She probably dressed up like an orderly or something to pull off an assassination.

And Rhodes - the only one at the table not drinking - is hardly a surprise at all.  

But…  “Okay, we are definitely starting with you, Cap,” Clint says, and Steve smiles and discards a card.  He’s going to win this damned game if they’re not careful, seriously.  

“I was a Beta before the serum,” Steve, the Alpha-y-est Alpha Clint has ever met, reminds them all easily.  “The betting was pretty close as to what my alignment would be afterwards, but no one was willing to assume I _wouldn’t_ be an Omega.  I got thorough - and thoroughly embarrassing,” His voice reflects the exasperation he doubtless felt at the time. “- sexual education courses targeted to both Alphas and Omegas, including a tour of a heat shelter they were preparing.”  He smiles sharply.  “Just in case.”

“You didn’t know what you’d be?” Sam asks, fascinated and toying with his cards.

“No one did.  Erskine told me he thought I would stay a Beta, I was convinced I would be an Alpha but was hoping for Omega, Peggy swore it would be Omega but was hoping for Beta…  I think Phillips was the big winner on the pool, though, most people bet Beta or Omega.”  

“Huh,” says Stark.

"Huh," agrees Clint.  "Okay, next:  Wanda?”

The young woman shrugs, a graceful glide of her shoulders, up and down, and tosses a card into the center.  “Pietro was an Omega.  I was never going to make him go through it alone.”

Clint doesn’t think about who is and isn’t alone now, hurriedly moving on.

“Sam?”

“Counselor, man.  I had a patient freaking out about going through it for the first time, even though it was clearly the right way to be going for him, so I offered to walk him in.  And I’m a Beta, not an Alpha, so they let me get him all the way to his room as long as we had an escort.  Half the women in the shelter walked us in, and I got three dates out of it.  Plus, satisfied my curiosity.”  Sam tries to pull a Gambit-style card throw, fails miserably, and shrugs as the card flops to the floor.  Steve generously picks it up for him and sticks it back in Sam’s hand like the cheating cheater he is.  Sam, already well on his way to intoxicated, doesn’t notice.

“Natasha?”

She smiles, discarding three cards under the guise of the one allowed by the rules like the cheating cheater _she_ is, and details a mission which almost perfectly matches what Clint’d imagined, except that it was a rescue instead of an assassination.  “I had to make the drop point with Mr. Hiroshi humping my leg, but other than that it wasn’t too bad,” she ends lightly.

When the snickers die down, Clint turns to Stark, raising his eyebrows at the Alpha.  

“Who, me?  Old news.  I figured everyone knew.”

From the blank looks around the table, though, Clint’s not the only one who’s missed this particular incident, and apparently, Stark can tell, because as he tosses his own card into the center of the table, he adds, “I used to be an Omega.  For… years, actually.”  

He takes another drink, and Vision fills in the awkward silence:  “I assume being the artificial intelligence animating the shelter counts as being inside it?”  He gives his polite, tentative smile.  “I am never entirely clear on the demarcations for these things.”

Clint’s question, so Clint’s call.  He sighs.  “Drop the card, Viz.”  

 

* * *

 

Steve doesn’t think it’s unreasonable of him to be alarmed by Tony’s disclosure, because Tony's his teammate.  

It isn’t unheard of for a man to switch his dynamic; it mostly happens in cases of high stress, when the hormones produced would instigate either an advance to or a retreat from the extreme ends of the spectrum.  Plenty of soldiers he'd known had gone off to battle as Betas and come home Alphas; a few came home Omegas, instead, and back before the days of suppressants, they got an honorable discharge.  Plenty of Omegas with longer cycles had hidden their dynamic to get into the army, at least back in Steve’s day, because once they started hitting the battlefield, there was a good chance they wouldn’t _be_ Omegas anymore.  

Incarceration is another common cause of dynamic slide; many Betas enter jail only to become Omegas once they encounter either the forced inactivity or overwhelming opposition from the other inmates.

But no one goes straight from Omega to Alpha, or, for that matter, the reverse, which means that Tony has to have changed dynamic not once, but twice.  And that _is_ rare.  

Steve doesn’t like the idea that Tony’s been hurt like that _once;_ twice is almost unbearable.

The last time, the one that ended with Tony an Alpha, has to have been Afghanistan, Steve thinks; that’s pretty much a given.   It makes sense:  captured and tortured - Steve mentally squirms, hurting for his friend - Tony would’ve been under a lot of stress; and his response to that was fight, not flight.  It probably involved a lot of physical activity from crafting the first Iron Man armor; Steve has seen pictures of the Mark I, and there has to have been some straight-up blacksmithing, there.

Once Tony had the stress and the fight response, and continued the fight response for… what, days?  Weeks?... he would have been in the quintessential setup for B-A transition.  Textbook, really.

But when had the O-B switch happened?  And, in a life as well-documented and -publicized as Tony Stark’s, why hadn’t any of them known about it?

 

* * *

 

“Tony called it ‘old news,’ and assumed it was well-known, but it didn’t appear in any of our briefing packets.  That means Juvie, to me,” Natasha says, when Steve asks her, discreetly, what she knows about it.  “I would ask Rhodey.”  She sips at the tea she’s drinking, and Steve tries his (not bad, but he still prefers coffee.)  Nat had asked him to spend an afternoon gossiping and painting her toenails with her - she flexes her feet, and the purple flower designs he gave her glint at him - and it’s been a lot of fun.  Plus, it confused the heck out of Tony and Clint when they found out about it.  Always a bonus.

 

* * *

 

“Yeah, it was a long time ago,” Rhodey says, not looking at Steve.  Then he changes the topic, talking about the implications of the NFL Concussion lawsuit on future gameplay, and Steve acknowledges the message by following his lead.  Besides which, letting it be known that your sport can potentially cause dementia _will_ lead to total overall degradation of the quality of players, sure, but (Steve argues) given the inordinate influence of the NFL today, that might not be inappropriate...  

 

* * *

 

Eventually, Steve decides to ask Vision, instead, on the grounds that Viz would remember when the heat shelter he ran for Tony was taken down.  

So Steve asks Clint if he’s seen Vision, and Clint says he thinks Viz might be on the first floor.  When Steve checks the first floor, Sam tells him he’d seen Vision meet up with Wanda before wandering off.  That leads Steve to check Wanda’s room, where he hears shuffling and hissing whispers before Wanda calls for him to enter.

When he pushes open the door, Wanda and Vision are sitting side by side on the bed, both of them distinctly mussed.  

It probably isn’t what it looks like, Steve thinks.

It probably _can’t_ be what it looks like; Steve isn’t even sure Viz _has_ genitals, and he definitely doesn’t plan to find out.  

But even though he’s sure - he’s _completely certain -_ that it _isn’t what it looks like,_ he still isn’t quite brave enough to ask what they were doing in here.   

“Yes, Steve?” Wanda asks.  “Was there something you wanted?”

“You know, I think I’ll just… ask… some other time.  When you’re not busy,” he ends in a rush.  

Then, thinking _oh god, why did I say that?,_ he runs away as quickly as he possibly can.

 

* * *

 

Someone knocks on the door, and Steve looks up from his sketch, the base layer before he starts painting.  He’s drawing a skunk, wearing a lose-collared Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses, wandering along the Great Wall.  The lines on its tail area echo the lines of the Wall itself, which gives Steve some material to play with in composition.  The skunk is looking out over the Mongolian side, surrounded by sightseers who never look down at it, and the expression on its face is very free and very lonely.  

Natasha’s leaning in the doorway, raising her eyebrows at the skunk (Steve’s already named him Robbie.)  “Looks good,” she says, then tilts her head to the side.  “Kind of reminds me of someone.”  

Steve doesn’t say anything, letting her think about it, but she changes the subject instead.  “Find anything out?”

“About?”  In addition to BuckyWatch, there are half a dozen open investigations that Hill’s been working on.  

“About Tony’s dynamic switch,” she says, which is about the last thing Steve’d expected her to follow up on.  He lets it show on his face, not that she really needs him to, and she adds, “You’re not the only one worried about our friend, Rogers.”

Steve feels his shoulders drop, and wonders when he’d raised them.  “Sorry,” he says, “No, nothing yet.”

She nods, as if this were the expected answer.  “Do you want me to ask him?” she offers, and Steve realizes that, somehow, she’s not just worried about _Tony_.

“Nah,” he says, standing up and wiping his graphite-covered hands on a solvent-soaked cloth, “I’ll do it.  It’s just being thorough, anyway; whatever it was, it’s in the past now.”

Natasha shrugs.  “Sure,” she agrees.

Steve’s pretty sure he knows what she means.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from a quote I found by James Gunn: "But if you, as an independent filmmaker or a 'serious' filmmaker, think you put more love into your characters than the Russo Brothers do Captain America, or Joss Whedon does the Hulk, or I do a talking raccoon, you are simply mistaken."


	2. In which a bear learns to Disco

“That’s adorable,” says Wanda from the doorway, and Steve startles so hard that he knocks over his turpentine.  

Halfway to the floor, the solvent freezes, oozing back into its tin, which rights itself.

“Thanks,” Steve says, and Wanda smiles at him.  “For the save, and the compliment,” he clarifies.

She takes it as the welcome it is, and steps into the room.  

On the easel, a grizzly bear in bell-bottoms and an open-collared shirt is learning to dance from a (size-enhanced) ladybug and dragonfly.  The dance floor is a riot of different animal breeds, dogs and cats, toads and badgers, penguins and, in the far background, a horse (which is wearing shades inside, because why not?)  A coyote tends bar with a watchful smirk, and there’s a woodpecker at war with its own reflection in the disco ball.  The grizzly’s grin is joyful, it’s movements uninhibited, but one can see in its eyes that it’s lost, and not quite sure how it got here…

“Steve,” she says, voice full of... something.  It sounds like a good something?  “I…  I didn’t even know you were an artist, but this is…”  

She looks like she wants to cry and smile at the same time.  

“Thanks,” he says again, feeling proud.  

Then he clears his throat, setting down the brush and the palette he’s been using.  “Was there something you wanted?” he asks, and she breaks out of whatever mental place she’d been in.  

“Yes,” she says.  “Tony was saying…”  She always calls him Tony, now, never Stark.  “...that we should go shopping?”

Steve pauses.  With Tony, shopping could mean anything from setting up missions (“shopping” among the captured HYDRA tech), to actual, normal-person shopping, to buying a fleet of semi-trucks for shipping StarkTech Portable Avengers Bases all around the continent.  

“He said something about my clothes,” Wanda adds doubtfully.  

“Oh!  Yeah, he mentioned that to me,” Steve remembers, relaxing.  “You didn’t have much when you first signed on, and I know he got you a bunch of stuff from online…”  She nods.  “...but he was thinking you’d be more comfortable if you picked out your own clothes, so he was going to sponsor a trip to the mall.”

She looks doubtful.  “Well, now it sounds like he’s going to _accompany me_ on a trip to the mall…”

“Oh,” says Steve.  “That’s… one idea....”

She looks very young when she wears this expression; it’s a particularly teenaged one that says, _you sound like you are full of shit, but I am willing to grant that there may be a seed of truth in your thoughts._ It even has the accent; it’s a very telling expression.

“I’ve seen Tony in a silk shirt with a translucent panel in purple striping diagonally across the stomach,” Steve explains.  

“Well, I suppose you can find anything on the internet,” she answers doubtfully.

“No, this wasn’t a photoshop, this was in person.  Less than six weeks ago."  He feels his mouth pulling to the side - fondness or exasperation, it's always difficult to tell with Tony.  "Please tell me you’re taking someone with taste with you.”

Wanda looks at him like he’s an idiot.

“You’ve already asked someone, haven’t you?” he says, smiling warmly.  Of course she has.

Except now Wanda’s looking at him like he’s an even bigger idiot than she previously suspected.

“Steve, I’m trying to ask _you.”_

 

* * *

  

So, they go shopping.  It’s… interesting.  

Tony takes the inclusion of Steve as an excuse to attempt to kit Steve out, too.  Tony’s made disparaging comments about Steve’s garments before, but this is the first opportunity he’s had when they’ve actually gone shopping together, and it turns out the rate of those comments increases exponentially, the closer they get to a Men’s section.   

Steve, in turn, reminds Tony that he would like to be dressing like a man, not a) a model or b) a girl.   Tony promptly takes the opportunity to mock him for insensitivity by invoking a hypothetical in which he’s transgender - which, to Steve’s mind, is less respectful that his own simple opinions about clothes, but nevermind.

“You know, if you actually were transgender, I would tolerate just fine,” Steve says decisively, by way of a distraction.  “But then, if you actually were transgender, you wouldn’t be standing in the men’s department with me, you’d be standing in Sacs or something with Natasha and Pepper, trying to find a bra that fits because, let’s face it, you would already have performed surgery on yourself to give yourself ‘the most epic pair of breasts the world has ever seen’, and you’d have lined up a professional doctor for the other surgery, which you would have planned for tomorrow, and all this is only after deciding to transition last week.”  Steve hangs a pair of discarded pants on the rack by their chairs.  “I'm saying you don’t do slow processes, much.  You’d find a way to speed it up.”

Tony fiddles with a scarf he’s found, twisting it forward and backwards in his hands.  “I think you’re the only who’s ever said something like that and not meant it as an insult,” he observes.

Steve frowns at him.  “Of course I don’t - what?  Who says that as an insult?”  He shakes his head.  “I mean, bear in mind, here, you’re talking to a guy who jumps out of plane without a parachute because it’s faster that way -”  Tony snorts. “- But I don’t think cutting out the nonsense is a bad thing.  I just think it’s efficient.”  

Tony smiles, wryly.  “You do a lot of nonsense for someone who feels that way,” he points out.

“Like what?”  At least his distraction had worked.

“Like those ‘debriefings’, going over everything we did wrong with people who weren’t there and don’t know what they’re talking about?”

Wanda steps out in a pair of tight jeans and a blousey sort of t-shirt, blatantly listening in.

“How else are you going to get better, if you don’t look at what you did wrong?”

“I look at what I did wrong!  I look at it constantly, I’m my own biggest critic!  I don’t need to hear it from outside my head, too!”  Tony turns his head to the side, lowering his voice.  He hadn’t been shouting, but Steve’s still glad.  “You look nice, Wanda, definitely that top.  The jeans are a swing and a miss.  We’ll get you some nice jewelry, accessorize it.”

Steve gives her a thumbs up, and she smiles, leaning on the wall, waiting for them to finish their conversation, pointedly not leaving.  

Steve looks at Tony, assessing.  “Okay,” he says, “You might have a point.”  Tony pretends to die of a heart attack, because he’s a _jerk._ “Let’s try this:  next mission we run, you send out an email afterwards telling us things you saw that were good, and things that were bad.  I’ll amend the list with my comments, and we’ll keep it circulating until everybody agrees.”

Tony looks stunned, like he hadn’t expected Steve to compromise.  And he might have a point with that, Steve admits to himself.  

“After this,” Wanda asks, “Gelato?”  

“God yes, gelato,” Tony agrees.

 

* * *

 

They have little tiny cups of espresso with the gelato, and Steve drives Tony to sputtering madness by offering to pay.  They sit at a small table on the sidewalk, and Steve enjoys the summer breeze on his face while Tony tries to explain what a “Sponge Bob” is.

“I'm beginning to suspect you don't actually know,  yourself,” Steve says, laughing, and Tony looks guilty.  Steve double-takes.  “You _don't_!” he accuses.   

“I know the general sort of -”

“No, no, Tony, you can't save this now.” Wanda’s laughter is an unmusical giggle interrupted by snorts, and it's so unlike the rest of her that Steve finds himself watching her in amazement.  He has a sudden mental image of her as the Green Lady in _The Silver Chair,_ and takes a moment to imagine her, challenging Rillian, Jill, and Eustace, the look of confused betrayal on her face when she falls.  Of course, he thinks, the real hero of that scene is Puddleglum....

He blinks, and the other two are staring at him.  “What?” he asks.

“What?” asks Tony, an edge in his voice, and Wanda shakes her head at them.

Steve gives a little shiver.  “Nothing,” he says, “Wool gathering.”

“Shoes next,” Tony announces suddenly, draining his espresso, and they look at him dubiously.   “No, seriously.  Wanda’s like Pep.  She's going to _love_ the shoes.”

 

* * *

 

He’s right:  she really, _really_  loves the shoes.  Name brands swirl around them - Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo, Louboutin -  as, for the first time that day, Wanda throws herself wholeheartedly into Tony’s scheme to spend thousands of dollars on her.  

“It's not thousands of dollars, Steve, don't exaggerate,” Tony tells him.  

Steve raises an eyebrow, and rattles off the last four price tags he'd seen.  "And that's just the shoes, mind you."

“Okay, fine, but don't tell Wanda.  She's having fun for once, which, you may not have noticed, but she _never does_ since her brother, and I don't want you making her feel guilty.”

“I wasn't going to tell _her,”_ Steve says irritably.  “I was just giving _you_ grief.”

Tony gapes at him for a moment, then crosses his arms, trying - and failing - not to look pleased.  “Were you this much trouble for Bucky?” he asks, sounding petulant.  

“I'm pretty sure that 90% of our relationship was us giving each other guff,” Steve admits.

“Oh, they have these in blue!” says Wanda, holding up a pair of heels that've got to be six inches high, and Tony beams at her.

“What about you, Steve?” Tony asks solicitously, and Steve narrows his eyes at him.  “New shoes?  Maybe something with dignity?”

“Nothin’ wrong with what I've got on,” Steve insists.

Tony blinks, then obviously decides not to tackle that one.  “They could be _better_ , though.”

“I'll get new shoes if you do,” Steve says, and Tony says, “Done,” so fast Steve blinks.  Wanda gives a little cheer, and the salesmen all smile.  

Huh.  Alright, fine, maybe his shoes could use some improvement.

He's assigned a tall Omega salesman named Rico, who brings him dress boots in a butter-soft brown leather, well-padded, with cream-colored stitching.  The toe is pointed just enough to be fashionable without being edgy, and, as he discovers when, blushing, he takes off his old brown boots and tries the new ones on, without pinching.  When he stands up, it's like standing on a mattress.  Steve rocks experimentally, then takes a few steps, and it's like his feet can suddenly hear again after a lifetime of being deaf.

He shakes his head.  “I don't know if I can deal with this,” he admits.

The salespeople all immediately look like they're going to cry.

“I mean, they're comfortable!” Steve says hurriedly.   “They're _really_ comfortable.  Feels like I could walk forever in ‘em.”  

“So what's the problem?” Tony asks, exasperated.   Rico looks like he doesn't want Tony snapping at Steve, but at the same time, he looks pretty curious, too.

Steve jerks his shoulders awkwardly.  “Just… never had shoes this nice, before.”  

Tony watches him expressionlessly as Wanda smiles and coos over the shoes; Rico looks like he might cry.  Suddenly, there are a lot more pairs of mens’ 11’s being added to their order; Rico holds up a pair of pointy black ones, asking if they were too much.   “I give in, I'll trust you,” Steve smiles at him, and Rico blushes and adds them to the pile.

Another salesman comes up, this time to Tony, bearing a richly dark pair of black Balmoral oxfords.  Tony tilts his head to the side and asks if they have a pair in the dove gray, which it turns out they do.  “Turnabout’s fair play,” he tells Steve, and starts to ease his shoes - navy and tan sadde-shoes - off.

He has long feet, is the first thing Steve notices, watching the chestnut-colored leather passing Tony’s heels, then slipping past the arches.  His socks look much more expensive than Steve’s own, which are plain white cotton.  Tony’s socks are charcoal, low-cut with thick padding and a matte sheen that tells Steve they're some kind of wool.  They contour to Tony’s feet like they're gloves, not socks, and Steve clasps his hands behind his back because he suddenly has an urge to touch.  

“What.  What kind of socks are those?” he asks, and his voice comes out embarrassingly husky.  

Tony looks up, curiosity flickering over his face for a moment before he answers, “High-end athletic socks, actually.  Merino wool, not cotton, with enough synthetics blended in to provide elasticity for some compression.  Designed to cushion and support the foot ergonomically.”  He gestures with one shoulder, adding, "Also reduces smell."

“Oh,” Steve says, and swallows.

“I use the same ones,” Rico comments a little flirtatiously, “although only when I'm running.  They're unbelievably comfortable.”

Tony flicks a look up at Steve, and obviously considers, but discards, the idea of buying him some, correctly understanding that it would push Steve too far.  “You can order them online,” he says instead.  “Get a couple different brands.  Once you start getting into athletic socks, there's a steep and slippery slope to obsession.”

Rico nods his head fervently behind him.

Steve doesn't say anything, because Tony has his shoes off and is flexing his toes back and forth at the ball.  His feet are long and lean, the toes making delicate little bumps against the Merino, with spacing between the knuckles suggesting his toes are dolichoid.   He rolls the foot on the ankle, and Steve swallows. 

“Alright,” Tony says, accepting the dove colored dress shoes.  He eases them on just as sensually and slowly as he took the other pair off, most likely unaware of the effect.  He hums thoughtfully when they're in place, standing and rocking a bit on the balls of his feet.  He pivots sharply, pronounces them perfect, and sits again to ease them off.

Steve realizes sharply that every Omega in the room is watching Tony.

“You're so careful with the shoes,” Wanda says. She sounds surprised, and Steve takes a moment to feel better, because he'd thought he was the only one.

Tony doesn't blush, really, but his neck gets a bit red.  “It's engineering,” he blusters.  “You don't have anything if you don't have a solid foundation.”  And that's true, but Steve absolutely doesn't believe it's the real reason for the delicacy in Tony’s hands as he handles the Italian-stitched beauties.

When they're done in the shoe store, escaping back into Tony’s very fast car for the trip back to the Avengers facility, Wanda asks, “Who taught you about clothes?” in a thoughtful voice.  Steve’s glad she asked; he would have said it wrong.

“Different people,” Tony says casually.   “Jarvis - the original Jarvis, not Vision-JARVIS, he was the butler at our house growing up.  My mom, some.”

“Is that why -”  Steve starts, then hesitates; but it’s too late now, so he picks up again.  “Is that why you tend to be a little more… flamboyant… in your fashion choices?  As a tribute to the people who taught you about clothes?”  Or is it a holdover from your past as an Omega, he doesn’t ask.

Tony doesn’t answer, his shoulders tight with tension.  

“I mean,” Steve continues, “If I thought of my mother every time I bought a shirt, I’d have the brightest wardrobe in the world.”

Tony doesn’t answer for a minute, but then he exhales slowly and his back slumps a little.  “That’s part of it,” he says, “Yeah.  But also -”

He cuts himself off like he thinks Steve won’t want to hear it, and it’s Wanda who leans over from her position in shotgun to ask, “Yes?”  

Tony side-eyes her, but answers, “It’s a form of attack.  I’m wearing something bright, it’s gonna put people’s backs up, make them defensive.  First one to lose their temper loses, so.”

Steve raises his eyebrows appreciatively.  “Good strategy,” he admits.  

They drive another fifteen minutes in silence, and Wanda puts her window down to feel the wind in her face, tugging at her wistful smile.  Under the wind noise, Steve leans forward and murmurs in Tony's ear.  "First one to lose their temper loses, hmm?"

"Yes," Tony replies, quiet enough that only Steve, with his enhancements, can hear it.  "For example, the first one to split firewood with their bare hands.  Just an example."

"I see."  Steve smiles before he can help himself.  “Didn’t you, in a fit of rage, give your home address to the entire nation and also a terrorist cell, a couple years ago?”

Tony snorts.  “Rude,” he says affectionately.  “No one asked you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes! 
> 
> 1) The banter invoking trans persons: There obviously are trans persons in this AU, the term refers to gender and not dynamic, and it's probably a little less common among males, and more common among females, than in our world. And I read this over about six times trying to be sure that it wasn't offensive. But! I am a ciswoman, and tend to be fairly insular, so I haven't hung out with many transpersons. As a result, I may have gotten this wrong. If so, please understand that it's an unintentional mistake, and have a respectful discussion of your reasoning with me in the comments! 
> 
> 2) I know so much more about shoes now. 
> 
> 3) Tony's socks are a blend of Feetures Elite Merino and Balega Hidden Comfort running socks. I had a pair of the thickest Feetures ones, and by god I loved those socks so fucking hard, and then I gained weight and now they don't fit, and it is tragic. The reason Rico only wears them for running is that they run $15-30 per pair, which is fucking expensive for socks. They're worth it, though.


	3. In which an opossum faces a colorful choice

When they get home, Wanda begs off, heading up to her room to show - well, Steve’s pretty sure he heard her wrong, because he thinks she said she’s showing _Sam_ her purchases, and that doesn’t make sense; Sam doesn’t care much about clothes.  She meanders upstairs by way of the kitchen, boxes following after her like obedient, flying schoolchildren, and Steve follows Tony out to the lab he had at the rear of the headquarters, stopping on the way to grab two of the craft beers out of the fridge.  

Tony looks up from the file he’s pulling up - looks like schematics for Redwing - when he sees Steve pause in the door.  Wordlessly, Steve offers the Smooth Hoperator, and tries not to be hurt by the wariness with which Tony takes it.

“What?” Tony asks suspiciously, and Steve folds his arms across his chest because otherwise he’s going to reach out and _strangle_ Tony.

“I haven’t even said anything!” Steve objects, and Tony rolls his eyes.  

“You brought me something.  You only bring me presents when you’re trying behavior modification, so, _what?”_

“It’s not behavior modification, it’s _manners,”_ Steve objects hotly, before realizing that’s an admission of guilt, in this case.  He closes his eyes. _“Damn_ it.”

Tony doesn’t say anything, looking at him for a long moment before catching the beer cap on the edge of a counter and smacking it off.  He takes a long pull of the green-labeled bottle, during which Steve tries very hard not to look at the motion of his throat, or his lips around the bottle, or the easy, dexterous strength in his fingers, loosely holding the beverage.  After a moment, Tony lowers the bottle, and asks, only a little snidely, “Don’t you mean, _darn it?”_

Steve laughs.  

“I mean, think of the example you’re setting for the children, Captain.  You use that kind of language around them, you never know what they -”

“Gosh darn it, Tony, you _shut your mouth,”_ he starts, and Tony chokes on his beer, laughing.  “I’m a flipping thirty-one year old man - or ninety-seven, depending on how you freakin’ decide to _count it -_ ”  Tony sets his bottle down.  “- I’ve fought, I’ve fought _actual flipping Nazis_ in a war, I’ve brought down an entire _gosh darned government agency -”_ They're both snickering helplessly, now, Tony's holding on to the edge of the counter for balance. “- I’ve come back from the dead to see everyone I know, including _everyone I loved best,_ is either dead or dying, and I think, all things considered, that I am by God allowed to say fuck if I want to.”

He politely waits for Tony to stop laughing while he opens his bottle of - he checks the label - oh dear - of “The Great, Big Kentucky Sausage Fest”.  He gives a mental sigh, but tries it anyway; it’s a good brown ale, he finds, not too hoppy like a lot of Tony’s beers (he eyes the doppelbock in Tony’s hand with mistrust.)  

Shaking his head, Tony raises the bottle, taking a long pull.  “Alright, Captain, what did you want?” he asks when he’s done.  

Steve smiles, sipping at his own ale.  “It’s nothing bad,” he says, “Or at least, I hope it isn’t.  We were worried, is all.”  

Tony looks at him sharply, fingers tapping on his label like it’s piano keys.  

“Natasha and I.  About what you said the other night, that you used to be an Omega.”

Tony stops tapping his fingers, clenching the bottle, instead, so hard his knuckles go white.

“Is that a problem?” he asks, and his voice is _pissed._

Steve hesitates, mostly just surprised by the tone, and knows instantly that it’s the wrong move.  He says, _“No,”_ loudly and firmly, but Tony saw that hesitation first, and he’s already jumping to conclusions about what it means.  

_“Fuck you,”_ Tony spits at him, eyes wide, “You didn’t have any problem with me at all before you knew that -”

“Well, _that_ isn’t true,” Steve mutters, thinking back to their first meeting.

_“Suck a dick,_ Rogers, it doesn’t _matter_ any more!  I’m not an Omega now, I haven’t been for over _two decades -”_

“Two decades?”  Steve echoes, surprised, and Tony pauses because that wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting.

Steve leaps on the silence.  “Look, Tony, I think you’ve misunderstood.  We weren’t worried about what it means _now,_ we were worried because -”  He sighs.  “It’s just - I know - Look, all transitions come with trauma, right?”

Tony snaps back “Yours didn’t,” and someday, Steve vows to himself, he is going to find a way to permanently sew Tony Stark’s mouth shut.  

No, he’s not.

God damn it.

“Mine came with pain,” Steve says shortly, because they're talking about the part of it he never, ever mentions.  “I was screaming in agony the whole time, with my crush listening in from the observation deck, thank you very much, and I couldn't see anything outside of these _burning_ lights, and I couldn't _move_.  And anyway, I think we can safely discount me as an outlier,” he adds, sarcasm tinting his tone probably more than it should.

“I love it when you talk nerdy to me,” Tony mutters, and Steve tries very hard to pretend he didn’t hear it.  

“Every Dynamic switch on record has been associated with violence, severe stress, or depression, _right?”_ he says pointedly, and Tony drops his eyes and nods, then takes a long pull from the beer to cover.   

“Sure.”

“So we were worried, because we’d just found out that one of our friends has been through more trauma than we thought,” Steve finishes.  “That’s _all.”_  He takes another swig of the Sausage Fest, and it’s better the second time; he might actually try it with sausage.  “Like I said; nothing bad.”

Tony doesn’t say anything, licking his lips and fiddling with something on the Redwing schematic.  Steve’s pretty sure he just deleted the guidance system, but he’s not an engineer, so he doesn’t say anything.  Tony scrawls a note - JOCASTA? - next to the guidance system, and shows every sign of being about to sink into his work again, so Steve gives in and speaks.  “Why, what did you think I was worried about?”

Tony looks over, eyes wide, then cuts his eyes away again.  “Nothing,” he says, “Nothing at all.  Do you think Sam would want an independent AI in Redwing?  That seems like the sort of thing he would get a kick out of, probably hug it when we’re not watching -”

“I think he’d hug it when we _were_ watching,” Steve snorts.  “Don’t lie to me, Tony.”

“I’m not _lying,_ it doesn’t _matter,”_ Tony says, contradicting himself, fiddling with the beer bottle, a wrench, the computer…

“You _are_ lying, it _does_ matter -”

“It _doesn’t!”_

“It’s something you’re worried about, Tony!  Tell me, we can work it out!”

“NO,” Tony says, eyes wide, turning on him.  “Not this one.  No.  If we could’ve worked it out, we would have already, we’ve known each other for years -”

Steve freezes, mouth curved against the neck of his Sausage Fest.  Carefully, he sets the bottle down on the counter.  “So it’s not a problem with the group, then,” he says.  “It’s a problem with me.”  

He can tell by the way Tony freezes that that this is a) true, and b) not something Tony meant for him to know.  

He thinks about it.  “Tony…  I know that there are guys who don’t like to acknowledge, to _admit_ that Dynamic Shift exists… and I know that those guys call themselves traditionalists or conservatives…  But Tony, we knew it happened, 'back in my day.'  It’s not a new thing; heck, when Bucky shipped out, we both basically assumed he was going to come home an Alpha.”

Tony stares at him.  

“I don’t have a problem with you shifting,” Steve says, spelling it out as blatantly as he can.  “So if you were worried about me being too old-fashioned…”

Tony’s head tilts to the side, his mouth moving silently, mouthing words.  Steve squints, and thinks he can make out _come home an Alpha._

You know, he thinks, Tony’s brain is pretty resilient.  I really wouldn’t think _me_ _**not**  being a jerk _would be the thing to break it.

Tony’s gaze darts to the corners of the workshop.  He spins, hovering a hand over the Redwing schematics, then freezes and spins again, meeting Steve’s eyes.  

“Let’s table this,” he says.  “Just for now.  I’ll work on Redwing, you work on - whatever you do - we’ll meet up tomorrow night for pizza and beer - nice call on the Sausage Fest, by the way, although it’s not really hoppy enough - we’ll talk it over then.”  He spins a stylus between his fingers, then sets it back on the desk.  “Say, around eight?”

Steve thinks about pushing, but really, it’s not urgent.  It only feels that way.

“Sure,” he agrees.  “Here?”

“Let’s do my rooms,” Tony says.  “I have a couch and a big screen.”  Then he turns back to Redwing, tuning Steve out completely.

 

* * *

 

“Are you doing a whole series of these?” Natasha asks from the doorway, and Steve looks up with a tight smile.  

“Sure,” he says, then relaxes again.  “I like the pathos of them - when we see a human who looks sad, we always sort of ask ourselves what that guy did to deserve it, but with an animal, we just go straight to the emotion.”  He shrugs.  “And I like the whimsy,” he admits.  “It makes me smile.”

“Well, I’m in favor of that,” she says, and studies the opossum on his canvas.  Steve’s had a lot of fun with this one, working out his frustration before he’d finished the sketch, and finding himself venturing into joy by the time he’d been halfway through painting.  He’d started it immediately after talking to Tony, and it’s now - huh, three in the morning - so he’s making pretty good time.  

There are a lot of outside influences in this one, but the big two are _The Wizard of Oz,_ with its transition from black and white to color, and another movie, a cartoon musical they’d watched back at the tower, about four explorers who cross a bunch of different-looking landscapes to rescue a kingdom from its conquerors.  

Unlike the other two paintings, these animals aren’t wearing any clothes; there also aren’t any other figures in the picture.  Instead, it’s just a pair of opossums, the male guarding its family, the female with three little faces hanging over her shoulder.  All five possums, crafted in a much more realistic style than the rest of the painting, are looking out of a black-and-white world into a sea of fantastical color:  fluorescent trees shaped like mushrooms, ferns with as much blue and orange in them as green, giant flowers with mouths at their centers.  The fantasy world is richly hued and vibrant, but threatening as a poison frog (which Steve has one of, hiding under a mushroom), spouting thorns and mouths everywhere, and it’s not unreasonable that the possums look as wary as they do enthralled.  

You can already see the female opossum shaking her head, getting ready to move her children back into the world of black and white, but the central figure of male possum is more ambiguous.  There’s no telling which way its alert form will move, forward into adventure (there’s a large stone with a knife in it and a fedora on top, just to make the dichotomy more obvious), or backwards into safety.  Either way, though, you can tell from his protective posture that the safety of the opossum’s family is paramount, and his sharp, clever little face shows that he’s trying to figure out the best way to accomplish that.

“Steve,” Natasha says, and while her voice isn’t easy to read, the fact that he can tell there’s _something_ in there…  

Well.  It says a lot.

“They’re fun to paint,” Steve cuts her off, because it’s embarrassing and he doesn’t want to talk about it.

“I’m sure,” she says, not-quite rolling her eyes.  She kisses his cheek, slowly, letting her mouth linger, letting her hand rest at his waist.  When she pulls back, she looks at him seriously.  “Get some sleep tonight, okay?” she asks, and he nods, setting aside the paint brush.  

He can finish it tomorrow, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes!  
> 1) "Steve freezes, mouth curved against the neck of his Sausage Fest" might just be the best sentence I'll write all month. <3
> 
> 2) I know a lot more about opossums / possums, now. Including that you can use either name. And that they are North America's only native marsupial. And the adults don't actually hang upside-down from branches, but I think Steve's headcanon for the opossum is that it totally goes into the fantasy world, picks up the fedora, and proceeds to hang upside down from everything, with the result that it's constantly *just barely* catching the fedora. I mean, that's *Steve's* headcanon for it, anyway.
> 
> 3) [The Great Big Kentucky Sausage Fest](http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/26850/99724/?ba=BEERchitect) and [Smooth Hoperator](http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/394/36670/), for your consideration. I first found the names [here,](https://www.buzzfeed.com/esquire/25-of-the-most-amazing-craft-beer-names-youll-ever-see?utm_term=.ahwqKYrOw#.cs05azEWO) and do yourself a favor if you like that list: read the comments. There are so many good beer names in there, I couldn't stop grinning!
> 
> 4) My goal for chapter length on this fic is deliberately short - 1,500 word minimum, to make it easier to get a post out. (I'm looking at you, Noun/Verb, with your 10k chapters that I can't get through.) This one's on the shorter end, but next chapter is - *checks* - more than double that, with a large section cut to be a flashback in a future chapter. Also, the next chapter is all written, and I'm just letting it sit long enough to get a decent edit done, so it'll be up tomorrow night after work.


	4. In which three animals do three different things very passionately (and one animal does not)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh, you guys! You guuuuys! This this has *over 1,500 views*! There are *over 100* Kudos! That has never happened in my life! I posted yesterday, and then some time around 3 in the morning it hit me what I'd seen! You guys are the greatest and I love you! *happy dance* *cat-like strop of joy* As a thank you, I'm posting both this chapter and a second one tonight. 
> 
> In other news: This chapter has a teeny tiny cameo from my favorite tinyfandom (which should not be a tinyfandom, but I swear it is, there are like... 3 fics on AO3, and no one ever knows what I'm talking about). If anybody spots it and wants fic with the guy, I'm up for that! Canon for both fandoms says he was running around Europe at the same time as Steve, so...
> 
> And, a question for you all: I realized that I missed a trick in the last chapter, and I would be willing to go back and edit it in. Is that allowed? Is it rude? I would not want to break AO3 social norms to do it, it's not *that* big a deal... *worries*
> 
> Lastly: [Ebi maccha-age,](https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/390898442630752815/) so that you have a visual reference.

 

Steve does not finish the painting that day.  Instead, the Avengers get called to help prevent an attack by Ten Rings forces on a small city in Tunisia.  They’re in the air over the Atlantic before he remembers that he’s supposed to be talking with Tony tonight, and that this is an appointment he will definitely no longer be able to keep.  Steve pulls out his phone, intending to call Tony and apologize for having to reschedule, only to find a message from Pepper of all people, asking Steve to have lunch with her once he gets back.  

Tony’s not with the team on this particular venture, because they decided that it didn’t need their whole force, and because he’s got a conference call with Stark Industries investors which will probably go a lot better if he’s in a suit, not the Suit, when he makes it.  So Rhodey’s flying the plane, his large hands still and sure on the controls, thoughtful mouth moving as he listens to music on his headset.  Steve heads to the nose and finds a space without anything important-looking and leans on the dashboard… panel… thing, waiting for Rhodey to notice him.

It doesn’t take long, and Rhodes pulls the headset down around his neck, making eye contact.  “What’s up, Captain?”

“Not much,” Steve says, crossing his arms because his mother clearly never taught him manners.  He uncrosses them again, putting his hands behind him and sitting on them again to keep himself from putting them right back over his chest.

It’s probably not Rhodey’s fault - in fact, Steve is certain it’s not Rhodey’s fault, he’s liked the guy ever since they met while re-erecting Grand Central Station after the Chitauri - but something about Rhodes always makes Steve defensive.  It’s probably not his rank, because Steve’s always gotten along with the other Colonels he knew, back in the ‘40’s - Chester Phillips, of course, but also Simon Tregarth and Ole Rasmussen - and it’s definitely not his skin color.  

It could, conceivably, be his Dynamic: Rhodes is what’s called a “smelly Beta”, a Beta with a few Alpha traits; named after their occasional tendency to emit Fight or Rut pheromones, despite the fact that pheromones _don't have_ consciously-identifiable scents.  Usually, smelly Betas transition to Alpha when subjected to enough stress, but Rhodes has flown over a hundred combat missions even without the suit, so he’s probably not going to switch.

But Rhodes is hardly the only smelly Beta Steve’s ever known.  Bucky was one, his pheromones wrecking all sorts of havoc on the streets of Brooklyn, and Thor is another.  Steve gets along great with Thor, so it’s probably not Rhodes’ Dynamic that puts his back up.  

Whatever it is, though, it doesn’t matter; Steve’s a professional, and furthermore, he really _likes_ Rhodey on a person-to-person basis, so he can keep his arms in neutral position and have a darned conversation with the man.  

Luckily, while Steve’s got his share and more of the Alpha personality traits, his unique physiology means he doesn't scent much unless he's very tired.  That, together with the fact that Alphas and Omegas are more sensitive to the chemicals than Betas, means Steve probably doesn’t need to worry about Rhodey getting agitated back at him.

Although, it may explain why Steve’s always fighting with _Tony_...

Putting the thought aside for later, Steve continues, “I was supposed to be having beer and pizza with Tony tonight, and was going to call him to cancel.”

“For obvious reasons,” Rhodes agrees.  “But you know, that thing about not using your phone on an airplane, it’s a myth -”

“Yeah, I know,” Steve cuts in, then adds more moderately, “I actually did pull out the phone...”  

He explains about the message from Pepper, including the bizarre specificity of lunch “as _soon_ as you get back”, and asks, “Any idea what that’s about?”

“None,” admits Rhodes.  “I mean, Tony - it’s got to be Tony, right?”

“Sure,” Steve nods.  

“But Tony’s like an iceberg; you think you know him, he flips over a reveals a German bomber frozen in the base.”  Steve laughs, surprised into it by the pointed reference.  “Then you start getting the bomber out, and he flips again, and now there's a polar bear on top.  And then you can't do anything, because you're fighting a polar bear, and let me tell you, those are big suckers."  Rhodes shrugs.  "Could be anything, really.  I heard you’ve been painting?” 

Steve shoots Rhodey a surprised look, because he wasn’t aware word had spread. 

“Natasha mentioned it," Rhodey explains, which doesn't explain at _all,_ because when was he hanging out with Natasha?  "Well, Pepper loves art; maybe it’s about that?”

“Seemed pretty urgent for a Degas discussion,” Steve says.  “But maybe, I guess.”

“Well, if it’s not art, then it’s _definitely_ Tony,” Rhodey snorts, and Steve bites back the harsh words about stating the obvious.  He’d been hoping for a _little_ more detail than that, but beggars, he supposed grimly, couldn’t be choosers.

 

* * *

 

 “Miss Potts,” Steve says, hesitating just inside the office door.  

“I’m sure I must have told you to call me Pepper,” she says, coming around her desk with a smile.  “Oh dear, did you just get in?”

Steve resists the urge to snap, instead saying, “Your message did seem rather urgent,” in as mild a voice as he could manage.  

“I didn’t mean…  Well, I guess it doesn’t matter,” she smiles ruefully, and Steve feels bad for being irritated; whatever the miscommunication was, it looks like it was an honest mistake.  “Come on, have you been to Yasuda?  They do fabulous sushi, and it’s walking distance -”

Steve has been to Yasuda no less than six times, back when he’d been staying in the Tower, but it seems rude to say, _Actually, I’d rather go to Haufbrau, where I’ll get decent portions for a slightly less insane price,_ so he follows her out, hefting the satchel with the shield in it behind him.  Maybe he can get this done quickly, and get home in time for a nap...

Pepper walks with him to the restaurant, looking at him with oddly when he offers her his arm; when he starts to apologize, though, she surprises him further by taking it, tucking her hand into his elbow.  She practically bullies the host into getting them a table (well, alright, she smiles at him, but it’s a very threatening smile, and Steve can smell the Omega’s reaction from three feet away), but when they’re seated, she invites Steve to order for them, if he wishes.  

Finally, Steve says, “Miss Potts, is confusing me a deliberate tactic here?  Because I have to say, it’s working,” and only feels a little guilty for the stricken look on her face.  

“I’m sure I’ve told you to call me Pepper,” she says, and was that _guilt_ he’d just been feeling?  Because suddenly it’s back to frustration, again.  (Maybe _tinged_ with guilt, though, because she does look a little distressed.)  “I’m not trying to be confusing, Steve, I just -”  She smiles awkwardly.  “I’m not really sure how to handle this, is all.”

“Handle _what?”_ Steve asks, totally baffled now.  

She smiles at him, and it’s a very professional smile, polished and poised and almost  - but, even more confusingly, _not quite -_ entirely fake.  Their waiter sets _ebi maccha-age_ in front of them, and she serves one to herself with delicately gripped chopsticks and, after a moment of hesitation, reaches for Steve’s plate and serves the other two to him.  Steve obediently forks one up and munches on it; he hasn’t tried these before, and they are, admittedly, pretty good.  

He takes a moment to wonder if he could convince them to serve him enough for an actual _meal._

“Tony talked to me,” she begins carefully, and Steve blinks at her, uncomfortably aware that the angle he’s holding his fork at means that the fried prawn is staring at her with its little black-bead eyes.  “He said you had spoken to him about his… interesting… dynamic?”

And here he’d thought he was baffled _before._ “I mean… yes?”  He starts to wave his fork, realizes that the prawn’s head is bobbing with the movement in an unsettlingly lifelike way, and stops abruptly.  “I…  we only found out this week,” he says cautiously.  “There was a.  Um.”  She raises her eyebrows.  Her hair is pulled back into a braided bun sort of thing, and Steve can’t help but notice that, even after their walk on a breezy summer day, there isn’t a hair out of place, nor is she showing signs of sweating.   “A drinking game,” Steve continues, his voice quiet and subdued because really, this isn’t something you want to be telling a friend’s dame.  “It came up,” he finishes, apologetically.

“As I understand it,” Pepper says, watching him carefully as the waiter delivers sake, free of charge (which Steve is pretty sure is illegal, but they’re not going to drink it anyway, so it doesn’t matter), “The rules of that particular game allow one to keep a secret, if one wishes, with the only penalty being the drawing of some cards.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve nods, “Normally there aren’t any cards involved - it’s not really gambling, per se -” he assures her earnestly, “- but so many of us have altered metabolisms that we really didn’t think it was fair to just have taking a drink be the penalty…”

Pepper nods, not breaking eye contact.  “So he didn’t have to tell you?” she clarifies pointedly, and Steve winces internally.  Maybe a little externally, too.

“I guess not,” he says.  “Anyway, we hadn’t known he’d switched Dynamic _twice -”_

“It’s unusual,” Pepper agrees, but if he slows down now he might never get through it, so he braves being rude and keeps talking.

“- And I was just _worried,_ that’s all.  Because it’s always something bad, isn’t it?  Depression, or the army, or jail?  So I wanted to be sure there wasn’t some threat out there, something which had hurt him _so badly_ before, that might come back, to, to bite him - _us,_ come back to bite  _us.”_  He shrugs his left shoulder, still holding his fork.  “That’s all.”

Pepper nods at him, listening, and then, when she realizes he’s done talking…

...She pours the sake.  

“This isn’t the conversation I expected to be having,” she mutters, and Steve shoves the last bite of prawn in his mouth to avoid responding.  

She sets the little thumb-sized cup in front of Steve, then pours one for herself.  “It’s not coming back,” she says finally.  “The threat, I mean.  It’s dead; it’s _been_ dead, for years.”  She nods at the little cup, her mouth a grim line.  “Drink your sake,” she orders, and, familiar with the tone of one who intends to make it alive off the battlefield, Steve drinks.

 

* * *

 

Steve doesn’t have to worry about when he’ll run into Tony; Pepper had mentioned that he was in Morocco for the next week, opening up a series of Stark factories.  “Medical equipment, mostly,” she’d said when he’d asked.  “And yes, it’s deliberate,” she’d added when he _hadn’t_ asked.  He tries not to be grateful for the reprieve, but to be honest, after the conversation today, he doesn't know  _what_ to think.

So that night, after the four-hour drive to Avengers HQ (three and a quarter if it's Steve or Tony driving, Steve because he has superhuman reflexes, Tony because he’s _insane),_ and a one-hour "nap" spent lying in his bed staring at the ceiling, Steve sets up three canvases in his room and starts sketching.  He doesn’t pour out any turpentine - he doesn’t plan to paint anything tonight - but he puts his biggest eraser where he can reach it easily.  He turns in a circle, adding features to different canvases, trying to make his brain work fast enough that he can’t think about anything other than the art.

It... _mostly_ works.  

He draws the outlines first:  the bird in its nest in the upper left-hand corner a rough trio of circles, the army it faces a curving line indicating the forward flank.  Then he erases the curve and redraws it, and again, until there’s a reasonable chance people will be able to see both the raptor and those it faces.  He turns.

Next canvas, a simple stick figure in the center, tall and strong and angry, but not nearly as angry as it'll be when it’s fleshed out.  The smaller stick figure curves around its legs, while the opposition pulls back, hiding behind the massive rectangle that will be its desk.

Next canvas, he lays the balcony out first, upper right side, then the lines for the crowd, then erases the whole thing and reorients it so that the balcony is on the left.  That still doesn’t work, so he erases again, turns the canvas on its side so it's in portrait position, and suddenly the balcony can go at the bottom, the entire southern half of the canvas, with the crowd barely seen over the edge before the top half is just wall.  Compositionally boring, but also significant, Steve thinks, and turns.

Back to the raptor, he sketches in the tilt of its head, the open scream of its mouth, the vague outline of its clothes.  He draws the pack on its back, then turns.

The stick figure gets clothes - good ones, Steve thinks, smiling to himself - and teeth, snarling in rage.  He feels himself grinding his own teeth and backs off, dropping down to work out the figure’s left paw, and the head that paw is resting on.  He turns.

The central figure of this one, he knows, has to show utter hopelessness, so he works hard to make the shoulders slump, only to erase again and again as it continues to look _wrong._ Finally, in frustration, he picks up his phone and googles, only to hit his head against the wall when he realizes that you can’t really draw _any_ cat with slumped shoulders, because _cats don’t have shoulders._ So he draws it again with a head hanging heavy on its neck, and that works pretty well.  He’ll tackle the damned dress next time; he turns.  

He keeps going, circling again and again, and hours later, the canvases are ready, the lines clean.  He takes a picture, something he’s been doing at Natasha’s insistence since the first time she walked in on him sketching, and stacks the three canvases facing the wall so that no one will see what’s on them.  

It’s ten til midnight, and he hasn’t a prayer of sleep.

Lost in thought, he walks down to the kitchen, intending on getting himself a cup of hot chocolate, only to pull up short when he finds Sam and Natasha there before him, talking in low voices.  He stops before entering, but they hear him anyway, inviting him in with a wave.  

Sam, ever the sane one, is wearing sleep pants and a gray t-shirt, wrapped in one of the throw-blankets they leave scattered around the den.  (Stark insists in his mind that it’s not a den; Steve tells Tony mentally that if it looks like a den, and quacks like a den…)  Natasha, on the other hand, looks exhausted, still in her uniform, her hair pulling out of its clips, a smudge of hopefully-not-blood on the underside of her chin, where she wouldn’t see it readily if she were, say, washing her face off in an airplane bathroom.

“Hot chocolate,” Steve explains in greeting, and they nod like people to whom that makes sense at minutes til midnight.  

“What’s wrong?” asks Natasha, eyes on him, and Steve shrugs.  

“Nothing,” he says shortly, pouring sugar, cocoa, water, and a pinch of salt into a saucepan, and stirring with one of those silicone whisks that doesn’t scratch the pan.  

Natasha doesn’t say anything.

Sam says, “Uh-huh, hoh-kay."  

Steve closes his eyes and thinks about the people he calls friends.  

He thinks a _lot_ of different things about his friends, past and present.  

“Hey,” he says suddenly, turning suddenly away from the stove viciously enough that he would later seek them both out for apologies, “Let’s talk about _Bucky.”_

Sam’s mouth drops open.

“Let’s all agree - just for the hypothetical here - that I’m friends with Bucky.  Back then, I mean.  Right?  We’re all on board with that?”

Natasha and Sam nod, not exchanging a glance only because, after a year of working closely together and possibly - Steve can’t confirm - sleeping together, each one already knows what the other is thinking.  

“And let’s say, just to prevent this coming too close to home,” Steve turns back to the cocoa, stirring it vengefully, “That Bucky _hadn’t_ been captured by HYDRA.  Let’s say he’d been, oh… found by a Swiss banker, or a French doctor, and while I’d been in the ice, he’d gotten -”  Steve thinks and discards several words before settling on - “comfortable.  And he’d been offered a chance, like, say it was the French doctor who found him, and he’d been offered a new surgical technique.  Right?”

“Is this an analogy to working for HYDRA?” Sam asks, cautiously.  

“I’m not answering that,” Steve says.

“Oh-kay…”

Natasha’s eyes narrow.  

“So he gets this surgical technique, and, instead of passing it on, making the doctor the happiest guy alive, he just… _ruins_ it, mucks it up, so that even the doctor can’t use it if he _does_ find it.”

“Is _this_ the analogy to working for HYDRA?”  

Steve gives him a flat look over his shoulder as he takes the milk out of the fridge.

“If that were what we were looking for,” he finishes, “If that were the guy Bucky was - leaving out all the brainwashing and cryo and torture, I mean, it's just a hypothetical, here - how would you say I should feel about my friend Bucky?”  He splashes the milk in so hard that most of it jumps back out again, spilling chocolate onto the burner. _“Damn_ it!”

Natasha comes up beside him with a sponge, moving the pan off the stove and wiping the burner carefully, turning the fan on, and then moving the pot back and wiping the rest of the mess.  She rinses out the sponge in the sink, then turns back and finishes the last little smudges of chocolate and rinses again.  

Then she turns to him, one hand resting on the rim of the sink.  “'Leaving out the brainwashing and cryo and torture',” she says softly, “If that were the case, I would think your initial understanding of Bucky was flawed, or…”  She smiles sadly.  “...that there was something wrong with the surgical technique that you don’t know about.”  

Steve has a lot of responses to that, but he keeps them all safely behind his teeth.  

Instead, after a minute, he reaches into the sink, picks up the clean-wrung sponge, and, taking her chin in his hand, wipes away the smudge under her jaw.  “Thanks,” he says, cleaning the sponge one more time.  

She kisses his cheek.  “No charge,” she tells him, then goes and tugs on Sam’s t-shirt.  “Come on, Falcon,” she says, “Let’s go.”

And she drags Sam out by his shirt.

He rolls his eyes, and lets her.

Steve thinks about the canvases lying stacked against his wall, and about the conversations he’s had in the last forty-eight hours, and about the people who’ve just left the kitchen.  

He realizes he’s going to be painting in every free minute for the next three _months._

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t sleep that night, either.  

Instead, when he gets back upstairs, he sets up a new portrait - and this one _is_ a portrait.  It’s quick, almost slap-dash, and he does it without a sketch.  He shades the darker edges in first, after using a red-based underwash, and adds creamy white in the center where the face will be.  The suit is old-fashioned, the sort he remembers from the fashion sets growing up, the hands adjusting the tie gently clawed like Sylvester the Cat's.  

Steve’s generally been avoiding cats and dogs for these paintings, the sketch he did earlier notwithstanding - people know them too well, the effect of using an animal would be lost.  And besides, it’s difficult to anthropomorphize animals that you’re so familiar with.  He’s been sticking to less usual ones, like the skunk or the opossums.  

But he’s seen the source material, and he can’t fight the conviction that there needs to be something of the familiar in this one, something fundamentally canine in the grin that he can’t capture with another animal.  

So when he finishes, the light glints off the teeth bared in a flirtatious, confident smile, shines on the broad, well-tailored shoulders of the hyena.  He’s charming; so charming, in fact, one could be forgiven for almost missing how ruthless he is.  

Almost.


	5. In which a fox threatens a teacher

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second of two chapters posted tonight! That eats up the buffer I'd tried to set up yesterday, but hopefully should get another out in the next two days.

He doesn’t have any more time to paint, come the morning:  Hill calls all the Avengers in HQ to a threshing session to plan out their next steps against HYDRA and Ten Rings, including which one to go after first.  

They end up splitting up, with Steve, Sam and Rhodey - coordinating with Hill - to take out Ten Rings bases, and Natasha, Clint (when available), Wanda, and Viz, along with a team of Avengers’ support personnel and coordinating with SHIELD, to take on HYDRA cells.  

Steve wants, badly, to balk at leaving HYDRA to Natasha, but he can see the logic of it.  His own face is too well-known, and Sam and Rhodey need a powerhouse, not a sneak, to bust bases with them; they’re newer to the team, so it’s him or Nat as team leader; and furthermore, Natasha and Wanda are developing a rapport in much the same way Steve and Sam had (instantaneously, and for reasons that defy articulation).

So on the down side, he’s out of the country for most of the next month, and he definitely doesn’t have an opportunity to talk to Tony, which he’d wanted quite badly since his lunch with Pepper.

On the up side, Sam and Rhodey are individually hilarious; put them on a team with each other, and it’s basically the most fun he’s had on a mission since the time he and the Howling Commandos got to pretend they were escorting Dum Dum into custody for buggering a goat.  

(“It’s not my fault, that goat was _looking at me!”_ Dum Dum had howled, getting into character, and somehow managing to put out Aborted-Rut scent like _crazy_ .  And the nice thing about that was, they could make jokes about _looking at each other_ in front of the top brass, for _months,_ and no one would ever suspect a thing...)

Another downside, he obviously isn’t able to spend any time painting.  The three canvases he'd planned out stay at home with their faces turned to the wall, and he makes do with a sketchbook tucked into one of his pockets.  

At Hill’s insistence, though, and urged on by Sam and Rhodey with great enthusiasm, he starts posting his sketches online.  At first, it’s a dummy account on something called DeviantArt (he tries hard not to be concerned about the name), and then, once the others get the bit between their teeth, he wakes up one morning to find Sam, hunched conspiratorially over Sharmistha, their local liaison this week, uploading his little comics about a skink-version of Hill to a website from her old iMac.  

It turns out, they’ve turned it into something called a “webcomic” (and yes, thank you, Steve is able to put together the meaning of that name _just fine),_ and Hill has blown it up into being a cover for him that involves Steve playing the role of a struggling artist.  

“Every other cover we’ve ever made you has fallen through because you can’t lie for shit,” she rants.  “With this, you wouldn’t have to talk to anybody, and almost everything you type will be true: you _are_ a young artist, you _do_ travel a lot for your other job, and you _are_ afraid to put a picture of yourself up because you _are_ paranoid about being identified in real life, just not for anxiety reasons, and _please don’t screw this up for me, Steve!”_

Steve has a sudden memory of blowing his first - and, for a long time, only - op, because he was completely unable to say no to the very charming young Omega (and minion of some guy named Green Goblin, for gosh sakes, but it’s not like he _knew_ that at the time) who asked him out for a date.  

He winces, and agrees.  

(Later, the comic will have evolved into a wildly popular adventure story involving Agent Marisa Knoll, Nikolai the Angry Tortoise, and Phineas the Mild-Mannered Mongoose, facing off against various forces such as - just an example, here - Lonnie, who wants to wield his brother’s magic sword, and is furiously envious that he can’t.  (Because he doesn’t have arms - Lonnie’s a snake.)  (He’s adopted.))  

But the actual missions against Ten Rings are straightforward, or at least relatively so, and because he draws and inks the sketches by hand without refining them in any kind of computer program (a look, Hill tells him, which is less than thoroughly popular with the Internet; Steve tells her in return how much time it would take him in a drawing program, and she winces and agrees that hand-drawn is fine)...  Well, he still has time to spend thinking.  

Which is about the last thing he wants, because, always, his mind circles around back to that lunch with Pepper.

 

* * *

 

_Pepper leans back in her chair, sake cup gripped loosely in one hand as she puts away the cell phone.  She’s just cancelled all of her afternoon appointments.  “The thing I don’t understand,” she muses, “Is why he didn’t just tell you.  Did you ask him?”_

_“I sure thought I did,” Steve says tiredly.  “I said we were worried because something has to’ve happened to him, what else could that mean?”_

_Pepper sighs.  “A lot of things,” she says sadly.  “It could mean you were worried he was too damaged to be useful, for one.”  Steve gasps and opens his mouth to object, but she cuts him off with a lazy wave of the warm glass.  “No, I know, that’s not what you meant, but you have to understand, that’s what he would have heard.”  She purses her mouth.  “Which brings us back to the question at hand.”_

_Their waiter begins delivering plate after plate of food, and they both wait until he’s gone to continue the conversation._

_“I suppose I should start with this,” she says:  “Your understanding of Dynamic Switch is wrong.”_

_“Excuse me?”  Steve looks up from where he’s stirring wasabi into his soy sauce to be sure he’s heard her correctly._

_“Oh, most of the time it’s exactly what you said:  depression, or violence, or jail.  So I suppose you’re not_ wrong, _you’re just… limited.  There are other causes, they're just... unusual.  Brain tumors, for example.  No, not for Tony.”_

_Steve nods to show he’s listening as she picks a roll up at random and eats it.  Now that he thinks of it, he realizes he has heard of brain tumors doing all kinds of things._

_“The biggest other cause, though, and the one that happened for Tony,” she says when she’s swallowed, “Is an organic change in personality.  Just like the ones you're familiar with, it was caused by a stress, but…”  She sighs, and toys with her chopsticks, not meeting his eyes.  “There’s no good way to say this:  Dynamic switch can happen when you leave an abusive relationship.”_

_Steve stares at her.  “You would think that would be more well-documented,” he says slowly, and she shrugs._

_“There are other factors,” she admits.  “You can’t_ just _leave the abuser - God, that sounds awful, doesn’t it?  Like that’s_ ever _a little thing, instead of the bravest thing I can think of - but you have to immerse yourself in additional external stresses while also seeking to change internally - Tony took over Stark Industries - and…”_

_She makes a little distressed noise.  “It’s actually very rare for people to actually change their personalities,” she finishes.  “Human beings…  We don’t like to change our habits in_  anything, _as a rule, and we seek out the same relationships, over and over again, in different people.  The stress that promotes Dynamic Switch - the stress that Tony went through - it comes when we, instead, make new choices, and seek different relationships.”  She smiles grimly.  "Most people can't sustain it enough for to Switch.  I doubt I could."_

_"Yeah," Steve says hoarsely, thinking back to a youth spent trying_  so hard  _to just submit, and_ always  _failing.  "I couldn't, either."_

_Steve swallows a bite of fish, and they eat in silence for a few minutes.  When his current plate is gone, Steve reaches over and, without asking, pours them both some more rice wine._

_“Thank you,” murmurs Pepper._

_“Thank_ you,” _Steve says earnestly.  “You’ve answered a big question for me.”_

_“Not yet,” she smiles grimly.  “You haven’t asked who the abuser was.”_

_Steve stabs the - he thinks it might be tuna - with his fork.  “He said it’d been over two decades,” he answers.  “And I can do math._

_“It was Howard, wasn’t it?”_

_She nods.  “Of course it was,” she says calmly, then looks_ agonized _and sticks an entire piece of sushi in her mouth to cover.  She chokes in it, though, coughing and turning pink, and Steve pours her a glass of water and wonders frantically if he’s going to have to do the Heimlich maneuver - no one_ ever _wants the Heimlich from him, he_ always _breaks ribs -_

_But she recovers, apologizing for making a scene, which Steve assures her isn’t necessary._

_“If I ask you questions,” he jokes desperately, “You’re not going to choke again, are you?”_

_“I’ll try not to,” she says wanly, but the tension is successfully broken.  Steve nods, seriously, and starts asking a long list of questions, each more horrible than the last:_

_“What kind of abuse?” is the first question, a desperate_ please don’t say sexual _going unstated, but heard anyway.  (It wasn’t sexual, but the verbal abuse_ was _heavily related to Tony’s obvious, incumbent development into an Omega.  And anyway, it was still_  abuse.)

_“When did it start?”  (The first time incident he’s ever mentioned, he was ten, but she suspects much earlier.)_

_“Did anyone know?”  (His mother, obviously, and she did her best to mitigate it._ Except she didn’t, _Steve thinks very quietly,_ because she stayed.   _But then, he wasn’t there; maybe leaving was something outside her abilities....)_

_“How did it end?” he asks finally._

_“He died,” Pepper reminds him.  “They both did; car accident in ‘91.”  She’s been looking at the sushi almost the whole time; they both have, because it’s a heck of a lot easier to talk about this stuff without making eye contact.  It’s too intense, to - well._

_Like the sushi, he thinks, it's too raw._

_But she’s been glancing up from time to time, and she does so now.  She’s just in time to catch the look on his face before he wipes it._

_“What?” she asks, staring, and he shakes his head.  “No, tell me,” she insists.  “Oh, God, Steve, what is it?”_

_Steve blows out a bracing breath, and rests his fork on his plate, heart beating heavy in his chest in a way it almost never did, since the serum.  “It wasn’t,” he says quietly._

_“What wasn’t?”_

_He looks at the confused wrinkle between her brows for a moment before closing his eyes and spitting it out:  “The car accident.  It wasn’t.”_

_“Wasn’t_ what?” _she asks, and when he opens his eyes, she looks completely befuddled._

_“An accident,” he says, and this time, she gets it.  He watches the awful progress of the knowledge across her face:  horror, giving way to anger, giving way to fear, which passes in turn to a_ painfully _sharp compassion (“Poor Tony,” he can almost hear her say), and then, finally, to calm._

_“They were murdered,” she says, just making sure.  Clarifying, as it were._

_“Yes,” he says._

“Good,” _she says fiercely, and Steve thinks for a moment that her love for Tony is like a flame that glows through her, lighting her from within like an angel._

_He’s pretty sure it’s not just the Extremis, anyway._

_Then her face crumples in guilt, and she says, "Oh, God, don't tell Tony I said that, it wasn't - His_  mother _was in there -"  She stops, and shakes her head bracingly.  “But who did it?” she asks._

_“HYDRA,” he answers, a little taken aback, and a lot angry about the death of one friend and the pain of another, but also touched by her ferocity.  “Zola - he bragged about it to me, and later, I checked the leaked files.  It’s in there - no comment on the motive for it, who ordered it, or who pulled it off, but they were making sure they didn’t kill too many influential people in one year, so…”  He flicks an eyebrow up and down because he’s too angry to shrug.  “...there was a list.”_

_She nods again._

_Says, “We have to tell Tony.”_

_Steve is ready to protest harshly, but she overrides him:  “We_ have _to, Steve.  Can you imagine him learning this_ anywhere _else?  He_ hated _his father, but he still loved him, and his mother -”  She closes her eyes, opens them again.  “His mother is the entire reason he even knows_ how _to love.  We have_ got _to tell him.”_

_Steve doesn’t want to do it.  He really doesn’t want to, for a number of reasons, but the number one is the one he growls at Pepper:  “It’s going to hurt him.”_

_She’s less than sympathetic:  “That’s stupid, Steve.  You know that, right?  That’s an idiotic way to think.  You don’t keep secrets from someone just because it might hurt them, because the lying will always hurt more.”_

_He makes an unhappy noise in his throat.  Absently, he notices the patrons at the other tables are all squabbling with each other in low, hissing voices, and realizes abruptly that he’s putting out scent.  “Oh, Jeez,” he says, standing up suddenly.  “Pepper, I’m sorry, I’ve got to get out in the open, I’m -”_

_She blinks, and looks around the restaurant.  “Oh, god, how long has that been going on?  Go on, I’ll join you on the street, get into the air.”_

_Five minutes later, Steve has regained his calm, and Pepper is joining him on the sidewalk, having apologized on his behalf, and ready to walk back to Stark Tower in her impossibly high shoes.  She accepts his arm with grace, this time, and they walk back to the Tower in much better moods than they’d left it._

_“So,” Steve says, “I realize that we got a bit off point with the assassination revelation -”  She snorts agreement. “- But you said that discussing Tony’s Switch_ wasn’t _what you were expecting to talk about today?”_

_Pepper trips over a crack in the sidewalk, and Steve looks at her out of the corner of his eye with concern:  Pepper_ never _trips in heels, he’s heard any number of people swear by it._

_“Well, no,” she admits, “I think Tony was a bit..._ confused… _That is, I think when you asked about it,_ he _thought you were asking about…”  She trails off, clearly embarrassed._

_“It’s okay,” Steve takes pity on her, “You don’t have to tell me.”_

_“Oh, thank God,” she says bluntly._

_“But did he think_ I _was hitting on_ him, _or did he think I was afraid_ he _was going to hit on_ me?”  

_She freezes, standing still in the middle of the sidewalk, and, arm still caught looped through hers, Steve has to stop and pivot to face her._

_Pepper Potts is made of pretty firm stuff, though, because even though she looks_ mortified, _she just raises her chin and answers, “I think he started out thinking the latter, and ended up thinking the former.”  And Steve nods, because that really does explain a lot of that conversation…_

_Pepper squares her shoulders.  “It’s not,” she points out, sweeping her tongue across her lower lip,_ “unusual, _for an Alpha to have both a… a wife or girlfriend…_ and _an Omega, living with him.”_

_“That’s true,” Steve says slowly, watching her carefully like she’s a bomb about to go off._

_Possibly not the best simile he could use with Pepper, he realizes._

_But it_ is _true, about Alphas keeping Omegas.  That’s even what it’s called._

_The whole reason Omegas developed, the evolutionary biologists claim, was to diffuse tension in the tribal setting, when only 10-15% of the population was female, and of the males, approximately 95% would fight to get laid.  Jockeying for power, especially among Alphas putting out Fight pheromones, would lead to explosions of violence that cascaded throughout the clan._

_The only thing that broke the cycle was a woman - and it pretty much had to be a woman - wading in to settle the dispute (rare, due to danger involved), or, once Omegas developed, the scent of a Heat.  Heat would send the Alphas into Rut, which would put an abrupt end to the punching and stabbing._

_Nowadays, the population of women was larger than in Neanderthal times - much larger, up to almost 20% of overall population - and anyway, the likelihood of entering Fight was much smaller when things like food and shelter were broadly available.  Among Alphas, though, the cultural habit of having an Omega in residence - ostensibly, as a potential control against Fight, but also as a status indicator - remained._

_Personally, Steve had always suspected that emotions, rather than pheromones, were the root cause of many such situations in the modern world, but then, well…  He’d had good reason to think so, hadn’t he?_

_“I”ve been…”  Pepper presses her lips together tightly, then tries again.  “I’ve been preparing for… years, now… to share my Alpha with an Omega.  It’s not something I’ve looked forward to, but I always figured it was inevitable.”  She breathes out in frustration, exasperation, fondness.  “Someday,_ someone _was going to figure out how wonderful he is.”  She slants a glance up at him.  “I… wasn’t_ dis _pleased to think that it might be you.”_

_Steve is stunned.  He has absolutely no idea how to respond to this, and instead, mutely, gestures that they should resume their walk.  A hundred thoughts - and a thousand memories of Tony - swirl around in his mind._

_The walk back to the tower is maybe ten minutes, and they’re already three minutes in.  Two more minutes pass before Pepper squares her shoulders, pulling her chin up to look him in the eye._ “Could _it be?  You, I mean.  Could it be you.”_

_Steve feels the panic rising in his chest.  “I’m not an Omega,” he says, barely getting the words out around the lump in his throat._

_“After that display in Yasuda?” she says dryly.  “You’re kidding me.”_

_Steve clears his throat, self-consciously._

_“You don’t need to be,” she tells him, voice so quiet he can barely pick it up.  “All he needs is someone to love him, Steve.”_

_“Would he?”  Steve’s voice shakes awfully, and he clears his throat again, although it doesn't seem to be doing much good.  “Could he?  I’m_ not an Omega, _Pepper!”_

_“Neither is he,” she says with quiet urgency, “And tell me, how do_ you _feel about_ him?”  

_Steve’s whole body is shaking now, and she must be able to feel it through her arm, because she stops talking.  Instead, she lifts his arm, wrapping it around her shoulders, and tucks her arm around his waist.  “It’s okay, Steve,” she murmurs.  “It’s okay.”  She starts walking again, surprisingly unstaggered by the amount of weight he's leaning on her.  He realizes that they're two-thirds of the way to making a scene, and follows, matching her long legs - how tall is she, anyway? - step for step._

_They part ways at the front of the Tower - for_ some reason _, he’s oddly reluctant to get in an elevator right now - and he takes his arm away from her shoulders reluctantly, only for her to catch at his hand.  “I’ll tell him to talk to you,” she promises.  “This is…  I was worried,” she admits, “But this is a very good idea.  He’s worried to, but if I tell him to talk to you…”_

_“He’ll shout and go build things in his workshop for a week?”_

_She laughs at the truth of it, her smile wry on her clever face.  “Well, that’s for the best,” she admits.  “It’ll give him something to yell about once I tell him about his parents.”_

 

* * *

 

Leaning against the wall in Avengers HQ, there’s a canvas frame covered in soft graphite, depicting a fox, looking furious and protective as it threatens the _hell_ out of its kit’s kindergarten teacher.

(Kit-dergarten teacher?)  

The fox is dressed sharply in a pointy-edged suit, a short, strawberry-blond ponytail whipping around its face, sunglasses dangling from one tightly-gripped paw, the other paw infinitely gentle on its kit’s head.  The kit itself is peaking out from behind its mother, ears pulled back and eyes big in obvious distress, gazing fearfully at the teacher, an almost-hidden dark blob behind a monolithic desk.  That’s the thing that Steve’s most worried about getting right:  the fox is only empathetic if you see that there’s a real threat to the kit.  

Steve likes the fox a lot, actually.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes!  
> 1) The [Five-Lined Skink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plestiodon_fasciatus), which is gorgeous. I kind of want to write a couple of comics for _Skink-ret Agent: Marisa Knoll..._ It's your call whether Hill sets that up because she genuinely thinks it works for a cover, or because she's trolling the hell out of Steve; let's face it, Rhodey and Sam would back her either way. I, personally, say it started as B and ended as A, but YMMV.
> 
> 2) Pepper's insistence on telling Tony about his parents was a giant middle finger, both to the genre of romance in which the entire conflict could be resolved with three minutes of honesty, and to Civil War. "That's stupid, Steve". Yes, yes it is.
> 
> 3) I actually have some biology backing up my theories on ABO, here. Since we're finally revealing some of it, here are a couple talking points:  
> \- Women don't have dynamics. (It never made sense to me that secondary sexual differentiation would apply across both sexes...)  
> \- Omegas can't get pregnant. (Sorry, guys.) They *do* have heats, but they only last a day or two, and the smell change in lead-up is only perceptible at close range, if that (possibly excepting Steve, who has a SuperSoldier Sniffer on him). They still get the special lubricated asses at all kinds of times, though, so there's that. :)  
> \- The opposite of a smelly Beta (or smelly Omega) is a mild Alpha or mild Beta. The perception of Alpha-Beta-Omega as a progression (as opposed to just three different things) is one of those "old superstition that turns out to be true", like storing water in copper vessels. I have bio-theory on why, but I don't know how much we'll get into it. The short answer is: hormones.  
> \- There were two main thoughts that made me want to write this. One was, "Why is all the gay gone in ABO fics? Like, there's still gay, but it *feels* really hetero. It doesn't *feel* gay." So Steve, an Alpha here, is totes gay for Tony, another Alpha, and that's basically what this whole story is about.  
> \- The other thought was, "Why do people keep talking about this sex/gender property and/or sexual attraction and appetite as if they were solely determined by genetics? When everybody knows that in reality, they're also variously influenced by physiological health (e.g., brain tumors), hormones, environment, and even nutrition." So, for example, we get a Steve who was a Beta with low energy largely because he was too poorly-fed to produce enough Testosterone, which isn't the only hormone which makes you an alpha, but is one of 'em. 
> 
> (By the way, in the real world? That effect can be mimicked by getting traumatic brain injury. Which, lord knows, Baby!Steve got a LOT. So if anyone wants to write the fic where Captain America has no sex drive because he has too much scarring in his hypothalamus, you now have an excuse! You're welcome! *shit-eating grin*)


	6. In which an eagle faces off against zombies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a plan for this, now! I'm looking at 4-5 more chapters, and I know how it's going to end. My plan is to keep it T-rated, or at most mature, but that's subject to change as necessary. And I have a second chapter mostly done, so that should be up tomorrow night.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has left a kudo (a kudos?) or commented! It makes it a heck of a lot easier to keep writing if I know people are reading.

Working with Rhodey is fundamentally different from working with Tony.   _It’s a lot less chaotic, for one,_ whispers the mean little voice that lives in Steve’s hind-brain, but no, there are lots of other differences, too.

Most of all,  Rhodey’s mind is much more linear than Tony’s:  

Once, Steve remembers, he’d been working a mission with both of them, and Hill had told them there were readings consistent with a gamma-radiation bomb.  Tony had tilted his head (about the only change of expression readable when he was in the suit), and taken off without warning and without telling anyone where he was going.  Rhodey had turned on his com, said, “I’ll get it, Cap,” and destroyed the bomb.  

Then, an hour later, Steve had tracked down Tony, only to find him in medical with Bruce, whom Tony had rescued from being kidnapped with a large dose of Hulk-targeting tranquilizers while he’d been waiting in reserve on the plane. 

It wasn’t like Rhodey was better or worse, exactly, but he was more predictable, and Tony just _wasn’t._ And while it’s nice to order someone to take out a tank and see the tank blow up, rather than a building halfway across the arena of battle…  Steve finds himself missing the challenge, the chaos, and the intuition that come with working with Tony.

Not that working with Rhodes isn’t _great._  It _is._ Rhodey’s funny - which, okay, Steve’s team has wits faster than a greased duck in a bread factory, the whole _lot_ of them are funny, but Rhodes in particular has a dry sense of humor which creeps around the edges of conversation, jumping in right when it’s least expected.  He’s also damned good at his job, balancing following orders against the improvisation necessary for individual interpretation with a finesse that guys outside the military just don’t seem to get.  In the field, he calls Steve _Captain_ or _Cap,_ and Steve calls him _Colonel,_  and both of them know it for the sign of respect it is.  

The thing that baffles Steve, though, is how the hell Rhodey came to be friends with Tony.  

They don’t exactly match:  Rhodey a straight-laced, relatively conservative, military man, and Tony is… _not._ He remembers that Rhodey and Tony met in college, and that Tony would have been an Omega at the time, and he wonders uneasily if they used to be lovers.  

He’s sure as hell never going to ask _Rhodes_ that, though.

And, hey, now Steve knows why Rhodey was putting his back up this whole time; at least he’s gotten _that_ out of this whole, Tony-shaped mess.  Not that he’s proud of being jealous, exactly, but the knowledge itself goes a fair way towards soothing the emotion.

Part of Steve wants to ask Rhodey about Tony’s - alright, Pepper’s insinuation of Tony’s - interest in him; after all, if their positions were reversed, Steve has no doubt that Tony would have been asking Bucky.  But he isn’t - _quite -_ brave enough to go through with it.

 

* * *

 

Back at the Upstate HQ, there are three scenes in pencil turned to the wall, and the bottom one is a bald eagle.  

Steve had thought a lot about what animal to use for Rhodey; the instinct to use a dog - a bulldog, ferocious and unafraid, growling at anyone who attacks its pack - was there, but he’d been avoiding cats and dogs for these pictures, and he didn’t want to break that trend.  

The next impulse was a horse, broad and heavy as a Clydesdale, graceful as an Arabian; but Steve quickly discarded that thought, both because it emphasized too much of the physical in a man who had, after all, graduated from MIT early and with honors - not to mention heading up weapons development for the US Air Force for five years - and also because horses were vegetarians and herd animals, and temperamentally, Rhodey was neither.  

The raptor had seemed to fit - you can put a lot of cunning into bird eyes - and the decision to give him the national bird had been so right Steve had felt a momentary shiver.  The eagle also allowed him a reason to draw a nest, and Steve had _plans_ for that nest.  

Plus, you know...  Bald jokes.

So Steve’s going to paint Colonel James Rhodes as an eagle, facing off against an army of zombies.  

He’d had fun drawing this in, half a dozen terrible movies and TV shows of the last year coming back to him as he outlined the opposing forces.  Men in suits, their ties hanging sloppy; aliens in armor, from the Chitauri to that green guy they’d met in Nebraska; women in bikinis, or cocktail dresses, or - in one case - a military uniform; and Omegas, in everything from tennis whites to nothing-but-makeup.  All of them, advancing, reaching for the nest.

Eagle-Rhodey guards it with his mouth open on a defiant scream; he’s pictured in profile, his one visible eye wide with youth and fear, but defiant.  He wears a bird-fitted version of a dress uniform (mostly the vest and tie), and a backpack, out of which bird-sized schoolbooks peek.  

One can, just barely, make out the paw of the small mammal he’s sheltering in his nest.

 

* * *

 

Steve badly, _badly_ wants to talk it out with Sam, but every time he thinks about starting the conversation, he gets a flash of _exactly how badly it could go,_ and decides against it.

(“Hey, Sam?  I hear they changed the regs now, and apparently I could be having sex with Tony.  Is that true?”

“Hey, Sam?  Can I talk to you about my feelings for a minute?”

“Hey, Sam?  You know how Tony used to be an Omega?  Well, it turns out, I’m actually way more attracted to him as an Alpha.”)

In the end, it’s habit that brings him down.  

Over the last year, Steve and Sam have come to a sort of unspoken code:  they can talk about anything, as long as the sun isn’t up.  Sometimes that means before they start running at 0500, but most often, it means some time within one hour of midnight, when they will meet in the common room of whatever dwelling they’re sharing.  It started in Sam’s house, moved to Avengers’ Tower, then to Upstate HQ, and now it’s usually a kitchen or living room in whatever safe-house they’re using that night.  

They never _plan_ to see each other, and sometimes, when Steve really hopes Sam will come, he doesn’t; it’s not a promise, or a date, or anything like that, it’s just…  If Steve’s there, and Sam’s there, they’ll talk.

It isn’t all Steve’s issues, either, although both men would swear that it is.  Steve’s talked Sam through his insecurities at being the new guy, though (“Just a guy with some wings,” he’d said, mournfully, into his bottle of Hop, Drop and Roll), his worry about leaving his Vets (Steve hadn’t been able to assure him about the quality of VA care with a straight face), and - the thing he had sworn Steve to secrecy about - how deeply uncomfortable he was with both Wanda and Vision (“I know it’s wrong, Visions a great guy, Wanda’s got a great heart, I _know_ that, but man, they just freak me out!”)

So it’s not really a surprise that, when  Steve and Sam find themselves up at midnight together in the room Hill’s been using to plan their targets (hard-copy, since Ultron), Steve finds himself blurting out his conundrum in the _absolute worst possible_ way:

“Hey, Sam?  Pepper Potts may have implied she’d be up for a three-way.”

Sam’s eyes go comically round, and then he gives Steve an incredibly betrayed look.  

“Man, get the hell out!  That is _not fair,_ that is not _cool,_ you do _not_ just drop that on me!  What the hell is wrong with you?”

It’s not precisely what Steve’d hoped he’d say.  

“It’s really been bothering me,” he says in a very small voice.  And maybe that word choice is something he should be paying attention to, because Sam picks up on it right away.

 _“Bothering_ you,” Sam says, incredulous.  “Okay, let me just - What the hell, man?”  He shakes his head and drains his mug of lukewarm coffee in one go.  “Okay.  Let’s start with - aw, fuck.  Start here:  are you interested?”

Steve shrugs.  “Maybe?” he says, immediately embarrassed by the way his voice cracks upwards at the end.

“Okay.”  Sam runs both hands over his scalp and the short, tight curls there.  He takes a deep breath.  “I have some questions.”  

Steve nods diligently.  

“Let’s start with three.  There are more, but three is a manageable start.”  Sam nods to himself.  “Number one: _may have implied?_ Did she or didn’t she?  Number two:  threesome with you and...?”  Sam spreads his hands, inviting Steve to fill in the blanks.  “Number three:   _context.  When_ and _under what circumstances_ did she maybe imply this?”

“Okay.  Number two,” Steve says, reminding himself to breath in and out deeply, and to watch Sam for signs of agitation, because it’ll be his only clue if he starts to put out Fight.  “Number two,” he repeats, then does an even, in-and-out breath just for practice.  “It’s Tony.” he says.  “Sam, it’s Tony.”  

Sam just nods, and maybe that had been fairly obvious when the invitation came from Pepper, but it still feels like the world starts spinning in the opposite direction.

Steve has to take a moment.  He has, actually, felt like this since Rebirth, but not often; his most accessible memory is of the asthma, the feeling of tightness throughout his chest.  He knows it's not real - he's physically incapable of having an attack, these days - but that's only one reassurance in the face of a different, huger fear.  

Steve focuses on his breathing, just the same way he used to do, counting his breaths in and out until they smooth and even.  Twice, he thinks they're steadying, only for his chest to hitch, and suddenly he's breathing panicked again, quick and shallow like a chased rabbit.  

By the time he's solid again, Sam has his hands wrapped around Steve's forearms, pulling back and down on them to keep Steve from pressing his hands against his face.  That's probably a good thing, because Steve has super-strength but not, as far as they know, super-durable eyeballs, and Sam's clearly been using all his strength to keep Steve's face safe.  As soon as he realizes, Steve relaxes his arms, and Sam pushes his hands down by his sides.

"There you go," he says.  "So, that seems like it was a big deal."  

Steve doesn't say anything.

"Why don't you start from the beginning?" Sam asks, and so Steve tells him about the whole thing:  His concern about additional trauma, the conversation in Tony’s Upstate lab, the odd way Tony’d gotten jittery and cut it off, and then lunch with Pepper.

“Did you ever find out why he switched?” Sam asks, and Steve nods.

“I did,” he says, “And while I’m under the impression that it was told to me in confidence -”  Sam knows all about that, and takes it without a quibble. “- I _can_ tell you it’s not something that’s going to come back and threaten him or us again.”  He pauses.  “Ever,” he adds with finality.

Sam breaths out through his mouth, and Steve realizes that he, too, was worried about that.  “Well, not beyond the psych effects,” is all he says, though.  “Any kinda wound gonna leave a scar, as my Nana would say.”

Steve nods, biting his lip unhappily.  

Sam brings his hands together, not clapping them, but rubbing them up and down along each other to create warmth and a _shh-shh_ sound.  “Okay,” he says.  “So question number one:  She may have implied it, she may not, but it would definitely be at least two points of a triangle.”

Steve nods.

“Number two:  Yeah, we answered that.”

Nods again.

“And number three:  In the context of you maybe getting together with Stark on a more permanent basis.”

Third nod, although not one without trepidation.

“And you’re really not sure about that, which, by the way, good call.  But I want to hear your reasons,” Sam tells him, then waits, not saying anything.

Sam is not one of those people you would think could pull that off; he’s friendly and easygoing, and the “dead silence” is a technique Steve associates with people like, for example, Natasha.  Hill.  Occasionally Clint.  But Sam’s silence is a warm and welcoming one, and Steve finds himself, once again, willing to fill it:  “I’m not sure about Pepper,” Steve admits.  “I have…”  He blushes and swallows.  “I’ve had feelings for Tony for quite some time - as well as a fair bit of attraction - but Pepper…”  He sort of flaps his hands in front of him, realizes he looks ridiculous, and sits on them, instead, trying to find a good way to say it.  Finally, he asks, “Have you ever seen an M. C. Escher print?”

Sam frowns.  “Sure,” he says.  “I’ve got some cards with Escher on the backs, actually.  When did _you_ see one?”

“I like art,” he points out, then asks, “Playing cards?  Really?” because art doesn’t get a lot of popular exposure like that, these days.  “Which print?”

Sam makes an awkward face.  “Uh, there was a watermill…?”  

“Oh, that one,” Steve nods.  “That works.  So you know how, when you look at the top of the waterfall, it looks normal; and the waterwheel looks fine, and the bases of all the pillars look fine, the towers have weird balls on them but are otherwise fine, and all that?”  Sam shrugs, but nods, and he continues.  “But when you stop and pull back, instead of feeling like it’s a normal picture, you feel like the whole thing is wrong?”  Another nod.  “Pepper’s like that.  She’s beautiful, she’s fierce, she’s kind, she’s a little terrifying, and she wears red lipstick; she should be precisely my cup of tea, but…”  Steve pulls a hand out from under himself to scrub through the back of his head.  “...when I pull back and look at the whole picture, instead of the pieces…  No.”

“Wow.”  Sam blinks at him.  “That’s…  I am so proud of you right now.”

Steve laughs.

“Don’t.  I’m serious; that was a really big deal.  You’ve identified something you feel strongly about, and you had to do it from a totally emotional basis because it flies in the face of logic, and if I were your therapist -”

“- Which you’re not -” Steve fills in, because Sam has been Very. Clear. on that point.

“- Which I’m not -” Sam agrees. “- I would be calling this a milestone and encouraging you to buy cupcakes right now.”

“We’re in Kolkata; do they do cupcakes here?”

“If not, I think they do those deep-fried doughnut-hole-lookin’ things,” Sam offers.  

“Alright, doughnut-hole-lookin’ things tomorrow,” Steve says, smiling at Sam.

“But, hey, this is important,” Sam says.  “If you feel like this, then don’t have sex with her.”  He shakes his head.  “You know, I was all set to assume you knew it, because you’re a grown-ass man, hell, you’re _Captain America,_ but I’m gonna go ahead and spell it out, anyway:  Never have sex with anybody unless _you_ want to do it.”

Steve smiles, rueful but with a dark, bitter edge to it.  “I thought the modern era was all about sexual freedom,” he says.

“Sure, if it makes you happy.  But it sounds like you think sex with Pepper might have the opposite effect.”  

Steve takes another of his even, in-and-out breaths.  

“Yeah,” he admits, thinking, _What’s wrong with me?_ Because Pepper is beautiful and wonderful and warm, but even for Tony...  No.  She is absolutely not for him.

“God, what do I _say_ to her?” he realizes.

“Nothing,” Sam answers immediately.  “She _may_ have _implied_ a desire to have sex with you and also Tony Stark, which, between you and me, she can keep him, thanks, but all you have to do is wait until she _actually_ asks - using clear, non-hand-gestures language - and then you say no.”  He shrugs.  “Simple.”  

“Simple,” Steve echoes incredulously.

“Sure.”  Sam grins gap-toothed and adorable at him.  “Just pretend it’s a matter of principle, _Captain.”_

Steve laughs, and Sam rubs his shoulder the same way Bucky used to.  It’s the most comforting thing he could possibly have done.

“Alright, Sam.”  He gets up and stretches.  “Early morning tomorrow; let’s get some sleep.”

“Early morning every morning, y’all are a whole crew of goddamn morning people,” Sam snorts like he's not one of them.  “Hey…  One more thing,” Sam stops him.

Steve looks over, tilting his head a little in inquiry.  

“Don’t think I don’t know what you just did.  Alphas who want Alphas…  You guys ever talk about this stuff in the ‘40’s?”  

Steve closes his eyes, keeps his breathing even and measured.  “No,” he answers.  “Not really.  Not beyond knowing it was illegal and making dirty jokes.”  He opens his eyes, exchanges a cynical look with Sam.  “Still, it’s legal now.  That’s one good thing about the future.”

“Am I the first one you’ve told?” Sam asks, not getting dissuaded by the future line.  

“No, no, of course not,” Steve says.  Mutters, really, while not meeting Sam's eyes.

Sam waits.  

“That was Pepper,” he folds, and Sam crosses the room to him.

“You’re giving me a god damn hug,” he mutters, folding Steve up in his arms.  “I’m so proud of you.  You’ve done a lot of brave shit, and maybe this isn’t the bravest, but it’s sure as hell up there.   _This_ is why I follow you,” he adds, and Steve is stunned.

 _“What?”_ he asks.  “That doesn’t make any sense.  Sam- ”

“Because you do the hard thing,” Sam interrupts him.  “Even when you don’t know where it’s taking you.  And you do it without complaining that it’s hard.”

Sam draws back to put his hand on Steve's shoulder again, this time from a lot closer.

“Gut truth:  You’re fucking terrified of the world finding out about this, aren’t you?”

Steve nods so hard he feels like his head’s going to roll right off.

“But you’d never ask Stark to hide with you, would you?”

“I’m not even sure I could,” Steve says in a small voice.

“Yeah, I know," Sam agrees, drawing him back into his arms, “And _that’s_ why I agreed to follow you.”


	7. In which a goose escorts some goslings

“So have you thought about it?” Sam asks the next day, as they’re monitoring a marketplace and waiting for Rhodey to finish talking to their source in Dhaka.  

(Hill’s had Rhodey and Sam splitting the undercover portions of their missions, because the two are the least recognizable Avengers - Rhodey because he’s usually in a suit and thankfully lacks Tony’s flashy personality, Sam because he’s new.  They’d rock-paper-scissored for this one, and Rhodey had won because, he claimed, he was especially gifted at rock-paper-scissors.  Sam had called bullshit, but he’d also been stuck with surveillance detail for the fourth time in a row, so Steve was starting to suspect Rhodey was on to something about his rock-paper-scissors prowess.)  

“Thought about…” Steve prompts, and Sam takes his eye away from his binoculars long enough to shoot Steve a _Seriously?!_ look.  “Oh.  That.”  

Steve shifts his weight uncomfortably, watching the scene play out below them.  Two men, who the Avengers have discovered are Ten Rings operatives, are shifting their way through a market crowded with mid-day shoppers.  Somewhere in the market is the entrance to the Ten Rings base; Sam and Steve are watching to see where the men go.  

Not taking his eyes off them, Steve asks, “Have you ever had a crush turn around and tell you they were interested?”

“Sure,” said Sam.  “Tiffanie McAvoy, senior year, and that was after I’d been obsessed with her since eighth grade.”

Steve gets the mental image of high-school-aged Sam, and smiles.  He probably hadn’t actually had horn-rim glasses, but that gap-toothed grin had surely been more pronounced…  “And did it, uh... freak you out?” he asks..

“ _Hell_ yeah,” Sam says immediately.  “Kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.  But it was high school, you know?  Let’s just say I was too dumb to fight it too much.”  The two men duck into the fifth building on the eastern side of the square, and Sam snaps his goggles down.  

Steve nods, and leads the way to the rear of the roof, to keep them from being spotted while launching.  “Let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

Sam brings it up again the next morning before their run.  “Taking Pepper out of it, though,” he says, double-knotting his shoelace.  “Are you planning on… what, dating?... Tony?”

“I don’t _know,”_ Steve says, frustration causing him to snap a shoelace.  He starts shuffling the string along, transferring length from the long end to the short.  “I’m not even sure _dating_ was on the list of options,” he sighs once he’s got the bow knotted.  “We didn’t exactly talk about it.”

“What do _you_ want?  Dating, sleeping together, being a secret mistress?”

Steve laughs at his phrasing, but finds he doesn’t have an answer to the actual question, so he takes off running.

The problem is, Steve’s last experience of a _date_ involved Bucky, two Omegas that couldn’t care less about him, and a trip to see a flying car.  He’s got no idea what’s involved or what kind of manners you use nowadays, and he’s not sure he’s brave enough to find out.  

Added to that, he and Tony have been friends for three years, now.  It’s not like they need time to get to know one another.

On the other hand, his mother would be plumb ashamed of him for thinking of getting together with a fellow without even one date, and just as embarrassed at the notion that he would be the fellow allowing himself to get treated like that.  

And Steve can actually imagine her _rolling over in her grave_ at the thought of him allowing himself to be a “secret mistress”.

But, although “secret mistress” is about the most melodramatic way to phrase it that Sam could possibly have come up with, Steve kind of thinks that might be what he wants.

 

* * *

 

“So, I take it from the running away and refusing to answer that you don’t really know what you’re looking for from Stark,” Sam says the next time they’re in Dhaka, four days later.  It’s the first time they’ve really been alone since the run - Hill’s been running them double-time, putting together the bust in Dhaka while simultaneously scoping intel for another bust in Magway (which, in Steve’s opinion, was an op that called _desperately_ for the deft touches of Hawkeye and the Widow, rather than the more smash-and-explode style Avengers Steve was leading.

He’d said as much to Hill, this morning, and she’d surprised him by agreeing.  She’d also seen the look on his face.  “What?” she’d asked irritably.  “I know how to listen to common sense, Steve.”)

Steve motions to the side-street they’re to turn down, and he and Sam change their direction.  They’re walking, because it’s a lot more maneuverable than a car in the current torrential storm, but neither of them is worried about being recognized; for one thing, they’re in local-style civies (colorful shorts and slogan t-shirts) with their gear in heavy, waterproof backpacks, and for another, they both have colorful umbrellas completely hiding their faces.

(Steve had suggested that they might want to wait for the weather to improve again, and Hill had looked at him oddly, while Rhodey started laughing.  That was when Steve had learned that this was not so much a _storm_ as it was a _monsoon.)_

“I have some idea what I want,” Steve mutters now, adding, embarrassed, “Most of my ideas aren’t exactly things that I can just _say,_ but they’re pretty clear mental images.”

Sam busts out laughing, the hooting one he gives when the reason for hilarity is very specifically a person being hilarious.  “Only for you,” he tells Steve, _“Only_ for you would I be willing to listen to X-rated fantasies about Tony Stark.”

“Duly noted,” Steve grins.  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to share.”

Sam hoots again.  “So other than, say, licking your way around the arc reactor -”

“No, he got that removed,” Steve says, sounding sad enough about it that Sam goes off again, staggering sideways, umbrella dipping down to the waterlogged street.

He comes back and shoves Steve in the shoulder.  “So other than _painting an arc reactor onto him -”_ Steve perks up, interested. “- did you have any _non-_ sexy ideas of what you want from this?”

Steve blushes.  He does have some; he’s not sure how to say it.  He imagines waking up to find Tony in his arms, or relaxing on the couch with him, and it just seems to fit, _so_ perfectly.  But he imagines going out to dinner together, and he’s nervous.  

“Some.”  Steve scrunches up his nose in a frustrated face.  “I’m not…  I’ve never been on a successful date in my life,” he says plaintively.  “I’m not opposed to dating if it goes well, I guess?  But it never has, and I just…”  He shrugs, hands rising to flap uselessly in front of him.  “I’m not attached to the idea.  I’m just as happy, well…”

When he trails off, Sam tilts his head like a _go on_ , the corresponding change of angle in his shoulders accidentally spraying water from the edge of his umbrella all over himself again.  

Steve mutters something, but Sam misses it and makes him repeat it, and no amount of huffing or rolling his eyes will dissuade him.  “I want what I had with _Bucky,_ alright?” he says finally, pouting and _knowing_ he’s pouting and not particularly caring, although his dignity will sting, later.

Sam’s not making fun, though, because Sam is an excellent friend.  “What you had with Bucky sounds like it was really comfortable,” is all he says instead.  “That’s not a bad goal to shoot for.”

“Only this time with more sex,” Steve adds.

Sam shakes water out of his eyes.  “I don’t need to know about that,” he informs Steve.

“I was _really_ sickly,” Steve explains breathlessly.  “It did _terrible_ things to my libido.”  He gives Sam mournful puppy eyes, remembering.

“I hate you,” Sam explains back.  “Please stop talking.”

“Like this one time,” Steve starts, eyes glinting slyly, “It was right before Bucky shipped off to Basic -”

“Does America know Steve Rogers is an _asshole?”_ Sam asks, and dumps his umbrella again on Steve.

 

* * *

 

Two days later, they all get a three-day break back at the Upstate facility, along with the other half of the team, although Tony’s back out of the country (Brussels, this time, for a science conference of some sort).  

The official reason for the leave is that Hill needs to check in with the other half of the Avengers and make sure that everything’s going smoothly in their run against HYDRA, and also because she want to borrow Natasha and Clint to go with Rhodey for the Magway job.  

The real reason is that they’ve all been going all-out, and they’re exhausted.  

It’s fascinating to watch Sam welcoming the other team back to base.  He checks them all over, in some cases not terribly subtly - no matter how close he is with Natasha, there is no way that patting her down for bandages will look like a caress - but he also makes a point of asking about how they think the mission went, carefully asking Wanda while Vision was out of the room and vice versa, asking Natasha obliquely, using almost no words but a lot of hand-gestures with Clint, who is still in mission-mode.

Then he asks about something else, and it’s always something different for each person, which surprises Steve.  He hadn’t been aware of Sam checking in on everybody before, although of course it makes sense.  

“You were in Georgia?  I’ve got some people down there.  ...Oh, the _other_ Georgia.  Well, what was it like?” he asks Clint.  (Shrug, grimace.  Shoulder clap.)

“Hey, I heard you had a stopover in Milan,” he tells Wanda.  “Any good shoes there?  I know that’s a thing for you, now.”  (“No, but I did buy some jewelry,” she says, touching her neck, where there’s a choker with a dark purple stone.)

“Viz, what’d you learn?” gets a five-minute recitation, largely of trivia, but also of philosophy and psychology:  “People are beautiful when they feel strong emotion.  Even frustration.”  (Sad smile.)

At that, Sam leans around him to look at Nat, who is studying the coffee she’s just poured with a careful lack of expression.  “Got frustrated, huh?” he asks, voice so rich with sympathy that Steve has to hide his smile.  Or, well…  as much as you can hide a smile from Natasha...

Nat looks up with a faint twist of her mouth, then swallows the coffee in six gulps, no pause for air.  She reaches over and pours a fresh cup for herself, as well as another for Sam and one for Steve, then re-sets the coffee-maker to brew again.  

“It was interesting,” she says, her voice inflectionless, but not cool, as she sets the coffee in front of Steve on her way past.

 

* * *

 

Steve does get some painting done on his leave - he finishes the painting with Opossum-Clint - but he decides to hold off on filling in the pencils he has leaning against his bedroom wall.  The storage containers he’d ordered have come in, and he carefully stashes the finished canvases, including Clint and the hyena, in one, then slides the pencils of the fox, the eagle, and the despairing lioness - in a ballgown, on a balcony overlooking the ball, a martini glass on the railing and a pill bottle spilling out of her reticule - into the other.  

Then he starts another canvas, the idea that’s been rattling around in his head coming out at last.  

This one is a goose, hustling his goslings across a crosswalk.  There are three gargantuan semi trucks in the street behind him, forming an intractable background, accentuated by the low-angle perspective of the piece.   The design is almost flat, and guiltily Steve recognizes that he has mostly stolen it from an album cover he’s seen.

Most of the goose’s body is turned towards the goslings, his feet pointed toward the other side of the street, wings stretching out to chivvy the goslings into a line.  His head, though, snaps around, sharp-eyed and open-beaked, warning off the threat of the stoat in uniform coming up behind him.  Steve doesn’t put too much detail into the stoat’s uniform, but it looks like a cross between a British Bobby and a Nazi, the blue so dark it’s almost black, the hat flat-topped with a short brim.  

The goose doesn’t seem to care _what_ the uniform stands for; if that stoat threatens his goslings, the goose is taking it out.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The album cover](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/42/Beatles_-_Abbey_Road.jpg) that Steve borrows from for the goose picture. And, while we're at it, [the movie about the explorers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vefJAtG-ZKI) that visually influenced Opossum!Clint's painting. Go on, tell me Steve would not have loved that movie with all his heart and soul. Try to tell me, I dare you.


	8. In which two raccoons pick locks

Steve’s first two days of leave of are relaxing and fun, catching up with Natasha’s team before they switch out, painting the goose and the possum, drinking beer on the back lawn with Clint and Rhodey.  

The third day of Steve’s leave, Tony comes back.  

It’s been almost a month since Steve’s talk with Pepper, at this point.  He’s had the time he needed to work through his mixed reactions to the revelation of Howard’s abuse, the cause of the Dynamic switch, and - most of all - the revelation that Tony - who Steve hadn’t known was even attracted to _men,_ much less Alphas - probably returned Steve’s attraction.  

His initial reaction - baffled terror - had had more to do with the unexpectedness of the information than with Tony himself.  

Intellectually, Steve has known that he’s not the only Alpha who…  Well.  Who, apparently, doesn’t particularly _have_ a preference for Dynamic.  He hadn’t cared when Bucky was a Beta and he himself an Alpha; he hadn’t cared when Jacques had gone into Heat a day earlier than expected, and it was up to him and Jim and _maybe_ Bucky to be able to do anything for him; he hasn’t cared with the dozens of Omegas - and others - who have hit on him before and after he came out of the ice (almost universally turned down).

And he has never been bothered by Tony’s Alpha status.  He thinks, pretty confidently, that Tony could be magically transformed into a Beta or an Omega tomorrow, and he, Steve, just _would not care._ It would still be _Tony,_ with his competent hands, confident mind, clever mouth, and chocolaty brown eyes.  Still with the snark and the sarcasm and the little smile that quirks his mouth when you fight back.  

Well.  Maybe he’d be a _little_ bit bothered.  If any of the Tony challenge went away, he might be.

But while Steve had known, intellectually, that he was not the only man who felt that way, it had always been abstract.  Even in the new century, with its laws and its parades and its “not that there’s anything wrong with that” baseline attitude, he’d always assumed he was alone in his…  

He probably shouldn’t think of it as a perversion.

But that’s what he’d grown up _calling_ it.

And, even if you _had_ told him that _someone_ he knew was like him, he still would have assumed it was, oh…  Ethan, down at Starbucks.  Or David, the Beta manager who runs his favorite bagel place in Brooklyn.  Or Cameron, in logistics.  

(Although…  Steve thinks that maybe, if this thing with Tony falls through, he might call Cameron, who has steady hands and steadier eyes and who _Maria Hill,_ of all people, blushes around.)

But Steve never, not in a _million years,_ would have assumed it was _Tony_ who was like him.  Not someone he knew _well._ Not a friend.  

Not the man he’s been secretly, quietly ogling for the last three years.

So finding out had been…  well.  A shock.  And that shock, like electricity, had come and gone too quickly for Steve to know whether or not he liked it.

But now…  

Steve’s had a few weeks.

He knows.

He likes it a lot.

His dreams the last few nights have been especially vivid, even for him.  He finds himself moving from one erotic situation to the next, each featuring a progressively more naked Tony.  (The arc reactor, despite having been gone from Original Recipe Tony for over two years, features heavily in these fantasies.)  

Steve knows, without being able to say why, that it’s because he’d finally verbalized it to Sam.  Somewhere in that conversation, he’d given himself _permission_ to dream.

So when Steve’s standing in the kitchen, getting another round of beer for Clint and Rhodey, and Tony Stark walks in, Steve can feel the smile lighting up his face.  “Tony!” he says, and he can feel his lips as he says the word, feel the pleased way they smile around the Y after puffing up obscenely for the O.  

“Cap,” Tony greets him, juggling his car keys in his hand.  “Got a minute?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, not particularly suavely.

“Come talk with me in my lab.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, feeling his heartbeat pounding in his throat.  

He leaves the beer to get warm on the counter.

 

* * *

 

The walk to the lab is torture.  

First of all, Tony’s leading (because it’s his lab, after all), and to be honest, it’s pretty much impossible _not_ to admire the view.  The curve of his back is mesmerizing, the spread of his shoulders beneath a soft gray t-shirt precisely proportioned by some god of nature.  

His butt, Steve decides - not for the first time - is just  _great._

But second of all, well…  This is the answer to the question, isn’t it?   _The_ question, the one that Steve hasn’t even been brave enough to ask for himself.  

(Thank god for Pepper.)

And third…  It’s a long walk.

And Steve’s been rock-hard since he left the kitchen.

 

* * *

 

Despite the fact that Tony can’t have spent more than a day there in the last month, Tony’s lab is just as chaotically brilliant as ever.  The bots are still at the Tower, but the Upstate Lab has a little mini-toolcase-cum-shop-vac named ARTU which whirs over to Steve and rubs against his leg.  Steve gives it an absent pat, too anxious and hopeful to pay much attention.

Tony waits until he’s in the middle of the lab, surrounded by the familiar and safe world of invention and improvement - of _engineering -_ to turn and look at Steve.  He meets Steve’s eyes with his own, strong emotion crinkling the edges and bringing his eyebrows together.

“So, Steve…” he starts, then stops to lick his lips.  Steve reflexively licks his own when he sees it, and Tony’s eye drop down, then snap back up again.  “Be honest with me,” he challenges, because Tony Stark doesn’t know how _not_ to challenge.  His voice is shaking, and Steve's pulse is pounding, hard, in his ears, the beat sounding normal - which is, for Steve, like a butterfly beating in his chest.

Suddenly, though, the look in Tony's eyes is clearer.

It’s.  It’s not good.  

Steve feels his breath catch in his chest, and Tony asks, “How long have you known that the Winter Soldier murdered my parents?”

And everything Steve’s been feeling since he looked up and saw Tony - the hope, the anticipation, the breathless excitement - all of it…

Just…

_Crumbles._

 

* * *

 

There’s a lot of shouting.  

From both of them, naturally.  It’s the first thing they’d ever done together, was to shout at each other, so it seems natural that they would do so now.  

(And, Steve is both pleased and frustrated to realize, he'd been right about them each pheromone-ing each other on.  He can feel it working on him, now, even when he does have the presence of mind to try to stay calm...)

The thing is, Steve _hadn’t_ known - not who ordered the hit, not who carried it out.  And while it makes sense that it would have been the Winter Soldier - the assassination on one of the heads of SHIELD was so smoothy performed that no one even knew it _was_ an assassination, and there were very few people at the time who could have done that - and Steve can’t exactly say he’s _surprised,_ the fact of the matter is, _he hadn’t known._

And Tony refuses to believe it.

He points out that he has no _reason_ to believe it, because after all, Steve has already lied to him about his parents’ deaths once.

(He hadn’t, actually. There’s a difference between not mentioning something and lying about it.  The technical term is _commission_ versus  _omission.)_

(It isn’t much of a difference, though.  Tony does have a point.)

Finally, _finally,_ Steve asks (roars, honestly), “Tony, how did _you_ find out?  Did Pepper tell you they were murdered and you just jumped to conclusions, or do you have some sort of proof?”

“Yes of course I have proof!  Jesus, Steve, how stupid do you think I am?  I found the fucking order, I found the thaw logs, I found mission documentation, I found the motive, it’s all there under a double-encryption in the fucking HYDRA dump that _you_ set loose,  _over a year ago!_    _Yes,_ I fucking found _proof!”_

“And how long did all that take you?” Steve snaps back hotly.

He can see the exact moment when Tony realizes that what he (and FRIDAY) can do in three weeks, Steve couldn’t have done if it had been three years since the HYDRA files went live.  It’s eerily like the moment a man dies:  All the tension leaves Tony’s face (although his shoulders are still taut), his expression wiping clean, and his mouth slacks open.  

Tony licks his lips again.   

“You didn’t know,” he says numbly.  

Steve doesn’t say, _I’ve just been screaming that at you for the last ten minutes,_  because he is not, actually, a beast at the mercy of his hormones.He just says, “No,” and lets Tony work through it.

Tony does not work it through in the direction he’d been hoping, though.  He shakes his head, going around the bench - away from Steve - and passing ARTU a couple of probe-screwdriver looking things to put away.  “I”m still furious with you,” he tells Steve, voice dull and vicious.  “You’re supposed to be the one guy I can trust not to lie to me, Steve -”

“Right, because Rhodes and Pepper don’t count -”

“Either of them would lie to me!  They’d do it in an _instant_ if they thought it was what I needed, because the whole foundation of those relationships is me being a needy little bitch and them taking care of me!”

Steve is _swamped_ by how wrong that is, but doesn’t get time to say it.

 _“You,_ though…  Even when you didn’t even like me - which, hell, you _still_ might not even like me -”

“Well, _that’s_ not true,” Steve interrupts, and they shut up for a moment, remembering the last time he stood in this lab and said that.

Tony shakes it off first.  “You still lied to me about my parents,” he says, eyes sharp and cynical.  “And I have to say, coming from you?  That hurts more than it would from _anybody_ else.”

Steve sighs, tiredly, and takes the lab stool, since Tony’s going to insist on standing.  “I didn’t think it mattered anymore,” he says.  “They’re dead either way.  I just thought -”

“What.”

Tony’s eyes are dark, and glitter like obsidian.  

“I thought all it - telling you - all it would do is hurt you,” Steve says, voice rough with shouting, and grief, and pain.  “And I couldn’t quite make myself do that.”

Tony stares at him, unconsciously reaching towards a pen and starting to flip it between his fingers as he thinks.  

 

* * *

 

Steve knows exactly how he would paint Tony (if he dares to paint Tony, which he’s not certain he does).  

When he was living in D.C., one of the Omegas in SHIELD medical had done him a solid, clearing him for duty while he was still healing because Steve had clearly been going out of his mind with boredom.  When Steve had said, “I don’t know how to thank you,” though, Dr. Zakir had looked up at him through his eyelashes and said, “Well, _actually…”_

In retrospect, it had absolutely been a setup.

No one needs Captain America to help them get rid of their raccoons.

But Steve hadn’t realized that, and had agreed, and so, two traps and a jar of peanut butter later, he and Dr. Zakir had been drinking coffee and talking about what to do with the masked bandits.  Dr. Zakir had a soft heart - probably why he was in medical in the first place, when he was actually a brilliant biochemist - and didn’t want to just kill them.  Unfortunately, in Virginia, it was illegal to trap and relocate the pests.  Having trapped, they were now obliged to kill the two chubby little varmints.

So Steve and Dr. Zakir had argued about the best way to do it.  Steve wanted to just break their necks, but Dr. Zakir didn’t want to risk opening the cages and having the raccoons escape; his counter-proposal was shooting them, but Steve wasn’t sure they were in an area that allowed discharge of firearms.  (Also, Steve was privately not impressed with the idea of filling out paperwork about the discharge of his service weapon over _raccoons.)_

Finally, Dr. Zakir proposed drowning them - there was a small river not far away, and they could tie a rope to the traps to retrieve them after ten minutes underwater.  “We could make a picnic!” Dr. Zakir said brightly, and Steve tried not to find that bizarre.

They didn’t make a picnic of it, but they did go down and sit on the edge of the bridge overlooking the river while the ropes drifted in the fast-moving water.  

For about a minute.  

And then, as Steve watched, a raccoon bobbed to the surface of the river and started swimming like hell for the shore.  

When he thinks about painting Tony, _that’s_ what Steve imagines:  A raccoon, trapped and dying but never, _ever,_ just giving up, two minutes from drowning, but hands working steadily, clever eyes focused, lip curled away from sharp, pointy teeth in a defiant snarl.  He’d give the raccoon jeans and a torn t-shirt, just like the real Tony wears at home.

It’s Tony, so there’s got to be tech in the painting.  Steve mentally moves the trap to a room full of computers, keeps the watery-blue light he remembers a little clearly but makes it a futuristic overhead instead of the filtering of weak sun through waves.  He lines the room with blinking lights, because it’ll give good color contrast, coral- and lime-colored indicator lights peaking from the walls around the mammal.  

Lastly, Steve would angle the image so that the viewer can see that Tony’s room is between a passage - the one Tony’s trying to unlock the door to - and a room full of soldiers, trying to break into Tony’s room.  The race against time is clear, but while the raccoon is frightened, it doesn't look worried or nervous; his life is in his hands, but he knows - rightly - that those hands are the safest place it could be.

 

* * *

 

The pen stills in Tony’s hand.

“Get out,” Tony says, then reaches over and tucks the pen into a coffee-mug.

“What?”

“Get out of my lab.”  He nods at the door.  “I have work to do - a _lot_ of work to be doing, actually - and you have a series of ops to plan with Wanda and Vision - which, good luck, by the way, Natalie sounded like she was going to cry - well, for Natasha, anyway - and I have things.  To be doing.  So.”  He gestures.  “There’s the door.  I’ll see you when you get back.”

Steve stares for a moment - wishes desperately to stay and keep arguing it out - but can’t think of an argument that trumps _it’s Tony’s space, and he said to leave._

So he leaves.

And goes and paints that irritating damned raccoon.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes! 
> 
> 1) THANK YOU to everyone who has commented, or left a kudos! That really makes it easier to keep working on this. Thank you so much!
> 
> 2) [Cameron in logistics](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKaCFi1P7pU) appears at the 47 second mark, for those who, like me, didn't catch his name (I had to google).  Cap has excellent taste. <3
> 
> 3) [Visual inspiration](https://images.alphacoders.com/245/245301.jpg) behind the raccoon picture. A [couple](http://wallpaperswide.com/bioshock_2_the_sisters-wallpapers.html) [more.](http://images.eurogamer.net/2012/articles/1/5/4/6/2/9/9/135764315618.jpg/EG11/resize/722x-1/format/jpg/free-bioshock-challenge-rooms-hd-desktop-wallpaper.jpg) I don't think Steve would have played Bioshock, but I have - it's magnificent, by the way, in case you haven't, totally worth buying or renting - and while Steve has the life experiences to paint something like that from scratch, as it were, I was totally cribbing when I came up with it. (All resemblances to Rocket are strictly coincidental, though, beyond what comes from the tropes involved in the MCU; I really just think Tony is coon-like.)
> 
> 4) Raccoon escape story is based on real events. Happened to my dad. Motherfuckers don't know how to give up and die, for real.


	9. In which a spider and a crab have a deliciously proper romance

When the Avengers regroup, sending Natasha and Clint to work with Rhodey, they also switch the kind of mission each group is doing:  Team Normal People (Clint’s choice of name, and, in Steve's opinion, a patently inaccurate one) are doing intelligence work in Magway, while Steve, Vision and Wanda (Team Break ALL the Things, also Clint’s choice of name) are using the excuse to practice their “blow things up” techniques on a few - alright, five - HYDRA bases that Nat and Hill have already picked. It leaves Steve’s strategist side bored, but lets his tactical side out to play, and besides...  The point is to get used to working with the new members of the team, not to fight an uphill battle every damned day.  

Their first mission is in Colombia.  Their pilot lifts off from the Upstate HQ at 1500, with engagement scheduled for 2104 - after nightfall, and immediately after the guards’ shift changes.  There’s a backup team with them, and that team is scheduled to arrive at 2200 to hold the facility, but (Steve sighs mentally) Team Break ALL the Things are heading in sooner.

Given who’s on his team, Steve doesn’t see any particular need for their pilot to _stop,_ per se:  they all just step out of the back of the plane, and gravity takes it from there.  There’s real strategic value in not landing the ‘Jet - avoidance of parachutes or ground transport means that they’re completely undetected when they land on the facility, and Steve will defend that reasoning to anyone who asks.

Or who implies that he jumps out of airplanes for fun.

Even though, he admits to himself, it _is_ an awful lot of fun.

The fighting when the hit the facility is brief, but longer than it needs to be, and Steve can instantly see the reason Natasha has been frustrated.  Now isn’t the time, though, so Steve makes a note and moves on, sending Vision running through HYDRA's local computer systems and Wanda scanning for hidden rooms and compartments to find the labs Steve knows are here, while he secures all methods of transportation to prevent any escapees.

He instructs everyone to hold their position until their reinforcements arrive to hold the facility, staying on radio contact.  “This is the most vulnerable point,” he reminds them, feeling a little parental, trying not to like it too much.  “If they can take out one of us without the others knowing, we’ve failed one of three vital mission objectives, here.  So everybody keep talking - I want at least one comment over the coms every minute and a half, or so.”  

There’s an awkward silence over the coms, the predictable result of people being told to “say anything”, and then Wanda says the _other_ predictable result of that instruction, which is, “Test, 1, 2, 3?”  

Steve sighs to himself.

“Anything but that,” Vision replies, and Steve almost laughs.

“Why?  What’s wrong with it?”

“I was quoting a showtune, Wanda,” and Steve gets the improbable mental image of Viz in a hat and suspenders, doing a Fosse-style dance number.  This time, he _does_ laugh.

“It’s from _Rent,”_ Steve says into his com.  “We used to have Movie Nights, back at the tower, and I think that one was Darcy’s pick.”  That's most likely how Jarvis is familiar with the tune, as well.  Most of the rest of the team hadn’t cared for the moviet: Clint rolled his eyes a lot, Tony sided with the bad guy, and Natasha’d just looked bored and unimpressed.  “Thor cried,” Steve tells the other two now, “but I liked it.”

There’s a silence over the com again, and then Wanda says, “I haven’t see many movies,” at the same time Vision asks, “What part of it did you most enjoy?”

Steve smiles.  Here we go, he thinks.  No wonder Nat had a hard time; this isn’t her sort of thing at all.  “I liked the music, Viz,” he answers as he does a circle patrol of the trucks and Jeeps (which aren’t really Jeeps, but close enough) in the hanger.  “I particularly enjoyed the way it wasn’t all broken into songs; that’s new, since my day, but it’s also old; some of the classical oratorios used the same technique.  It winds up feeling more immediate, more real, than the rest of the music, and it fit really nicely with the film because that was sort of the whole point.”  

He has night vision goggles, but he always prefers flashlight and eyes for night patrols; he can’t quite forget the way some of the Avengers’ tech can fool other people’s tech, and he’s pretty sure that’s a street that runs both ways.  

“I also thought that the frustrating process of creating art was captured pretty well,” he adds, “And their cinematographer made great use of color.”

“That’s right,” Wanda remembers, “You’ve been painting.  Has it been going well?”

“Never rains but it pours,” Steve says dismissively.  “Want to re-start movie nights?”

There’s a silent eight seconds, and then Wanda says, “Yes, I would like that very much,” and even after recovering herself, she still sounds surprised.

“Well, you’re the one that hasn’t seen many,” Steve says, ignoring the fact that this description could actually apply to him, too.  “First choice goes to you.  Be thinking about it.”

“If you wanted,” Vision offers, “I could compile a list of movies you seem likely to enjoy.”  He pauses, then grudgingly admits, “FRIDAY is likely also to have this capacity.”

“Thank you,” Wanda says, sounding touched by the offer, and that wraps up that.

A minute passes in silence, and then Wanda asks, “Captain, a few weeks ago, you had come to ask me something?”  

Steve honestly can’t remember what she’s talking about.  “I did?”

“Yes, it was while Viz and I were - having tea,” she says, and now Steve knows what she’s talking about.

“Oh!  Right, that.  I was actually looking for Viz,” he admits, then frowns.  “Viz?”

“I am here,” Vision says.  “It had not yet been quite a minute and thirty seconds yet.”  He sounds almost anxious, in his stilted way, and Steve wonders whether he’d taken the instruction to say something every minute and a half or sooner more literally than intended.

“Just checking.”  It’s not really worth getting fussed over.  

“Why were you looking for Vision?” Wanda asks, and _she_ sounds unduly worried, too.  Maybe protective of Viz?  That’s great if it’s true...

“It was about Tony,” Steve starts, not sure how to phrase the awkward and now resolved subject.

“Ah!”  Vision’s voice has the bright note he uses when he understands one of their bizarre human rituals.  “Was it regarding Mr. Stark’s long-standing infatuation with you?”

Steve freezes.  His mouth opens, but he doesn’t quite manage to get anything out, and Wanda beats him to it:  “What,” she says, and Steve can almost see her:  eyes wide with more than the liner she uses, dark makeup standing out against her pallor, serious expression in her brows and mouth, but her eyes telegraphing, _Who are these crazy people I’ve signed on with?!_ for the upteenth time.  

“Mr. Stark has had at least one portrait of Captain Rogers in his domicile since prior to my inception,” Vision is explaining to Wanda, amusement (presumably at Tony) lacing his tone, “Including a Howling Commandos poster in his bedroom during my earliest years; a candid photograph of Howard Stark, Agent Carter, Abraham Erskine, and Captain Rogers which appears to have been taken on the day of Project: Rebirth; and at last count some 219 photos of Captain Rogers with and without a variety of other persons on his smartphone.”

_Two hundred nineteen!_

_Seriously, Tony?!_

“My initial programming contained a substantial amount of information on human psychology and behavior, necessary to understand the intricacies of spoken interface.  I am quite certain that this documentary behavior is associated with 'crushes',” Vision finishes, and he sounds almost… defensive?  As if he isn’t entirely sure of his conclusions...

Well, of course he does; Steve knows as well as anyone that your body can change how you move through a social context.  

“But... They’re both Alphas,” Wanda says over the coms, her voice not offended, but clearly baffled.  

“My observations indicate that that is of little impedance in a statistically significant number of cases,” Vision points out, then hesitates.  “And at any rate,” he continues, subtly subdued, “What we desire frequently goes uninformed by the boundaries of common sense.”

Wanda doesn’t say anything.

“I hope I have not betrayed any confidence of Mr. Stark’s by mentioning this information,” Vision says suddenly, as if he only just realized it was a possibility.

Steve doesn’t say anything, and again Wanda fills the silence:  “I will not mention it.  It’s…  It is not my business.”  

“Captain Rogers,” Vision says suddenly, his voice sharp, and Steve realizes it’s been over a minute and a half.  

“Sorry, Viz,” he shakes himself out of it.  “I was startled.  I’m fine, no problems here.”  He swings his flashlight over the scene again, but no threat materializes out of the darkness.  “Good catch, though,” he praises.  “If I hadn’t answered, would you have held your position, or come for me?”

“Captain Rogers, I would ask you to reassure me that you will not hold this knowledge against Mr. Stark.”  Vision’s voice cuts across his distraction like an adamantine knife, and Steve closes his eyes.  

Wanda had sounded fine with Tony.  And that was when Tony _wasn’t_ there.

More importantly, though…  When it comes right down to it, Steve knows that the only way to build a team is with trust.  And to get trust, you first have to give it, every time.

Even if the thought of doing so makes his heart race and his breath catch in his chest more than jumping out of any plane.  This is at least as much of a risk as the other.

It’s for the team, he reminds himself.  It’s for Wanda, who doesn’t have a home anymore, and for Vision, who Steve’s people created and so can’t, _can’t_ abandon.

He opens his eyes again, breathes in, and says, “It’s not unrequited.”

There’s a period of about six seconds before the other two speak on top of each other again, “Congratulations, Captain!” and “I would never have guessed” tumbling over each other into a welter of pleased noises.  

“I must ask - I hope I am not being rude - but when did this occur?  I was not previously aware of any arrangement between the two of you, and I would have been, I think.”

Steve is about to answer, but then stops to wonder for a second instead - “Do you really want to know?”  It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing he’d expect Vision to ask about.  He _certainly_ wouldn’t have expected it of JARVIS…

“Ah.”  It’s oddly easy to read the embarrassment, even through the coms.  “I was actually inquiring because I suspected _Wanda_ would wish to know.”

That is… uh.  Unexpected?  Definitely unexpected.  The implications of the confession spread out like a floodplain before him, and Steve doesn’t hesitate before turning his back on them decisively.  “In that case…”  He makes sure to smile, because he knows it’ll come through the com.  “Let’s call it a work in progress.”

Wanda must be just resting her hand on the com button, because her giggle comes through clearly.  And apparently she realizes it, because she adds, “I wish you both luck, then,” and changes the topic: “What _should_ we have done, if you had gone silent on the coms?”  

After that, they're back to business, but with a pleasant easiness and camaraderie which wasn't there before.

 

* * *

 

Steve jumped out of the plane at 2103; they’ve secured the base and are en route to their next target by 2220.  

“Good work, Team,” Steve says, and Wanda and Viz both look startled to hear it - whether because he gave them a compliment or called them a team, he can’t guess.  

“Mini-debrief at 0500,” he adds, then, pulling a pack out from the side of the (large, awkward) HYDRA plane they’ve stolen, he pillows his head on it and goes to sleep.  

 

* * *

 

At 0510, they’re half an hour out from their target in the Falklands, and Steve is trying to explain the problem with Vision’s and Wanda’s fighting styles. 

“It’s like you’re hesitating, all the time,” he tells them, and they exchange a look.

“That is what Natasha said,” Wanda replies, and he can’t tell if she’s accusing or hurt or suspicious about it, but whatever it is, it’s not a great emotion to be seeing right before they jump out of a plane again.

“Natasha and I have been friends and compatriots for years, and we see a lotta stuff the same way,” Steve tells her as straightforwardly as he can, hoping it’ll head off the sulk he can see forming.  “This is just one of them.  You two are a lot alike, stylistically - that’s a good thing and a bad thing, because it means you work well together, but it also means you’ve got the same weaknesses as each other.”  He switches his gaze to Viz.  “Part of the goal of these missions is to change that,” he reminds them.

“I am unsure what hesitancy you refer to,” Vision tells him, but there’s a blankfacedness, a certain stiffness to his spine, which tells Steve that’s not quite true.   _So, Vision lies now - well,_ that’s _just great._

On the other hand, JARVIS had been known to lie for good purpose, on occasion, too.   _Even better - it’s congenital,_ Steve gripes to himself.  

He tips his head forward and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Look,” he starts, “You two remember Ultron, right?  Remember fighting together in that church in Sokhovia, against the army of killer robots?”  They nod, defensive and, in Wanda’s case, a little mosquito-bite’s worth of hostile.  “Alright.  Compare _that_ to _this.”_

Their eyes drop.  Steve lets the sit with it for a minute.  

He remembers, almost through a sepia haze, the first time he’d faced Bucky in the boxing ring, how timid and molasses-slow his movements had been, and how Bucky’d had this same talk with him.  They’d never made the opponent Steve could’ve taken before the serum, but Bucky’d had the talk anyway, ‘cause neither one of 'em was gonna admit it.

Alright, that was enough time.

“What was the difference between a HYDRA warehouse in Colombia and a robot army in Sokhovia?” Steve asks, and watches their eyes track sideways until they’re exchanging a rueful glance.  

Vision ducks his head.

Wanda gives the Eastern-European version of a snicker.

Steve carefully doesn’t watch their hands creep towards each other and then, not really stealthily at all, twine together in a clasp.

“I doubt it will be a problem in the future, Captain.”

“I hope it won’t, Viz, but definitely not in the next hour,” Steve says, and pulls his cowl on.

 

* * *

 

When they get home, almost twenty-four hours later, Steve staggers into his room and naps for almost three hours.  Then he gets up, and pulls out another clean canvas.

Movie nights at the tower:   _Rent,_ yes, but also Mel Brooks for Clint - _The Producers, Blazing Saddles,_ and _Robin Hood: Men in Tights_ \- epic films for Thor - _Lord of the Rings,_ of course, but also _Braveheart_ and _Ben Hur -_ and, for Pepper and Bruce, Jane Austen films: the new version of _Pride and Prejudice,_   _Mansfield Park,_ and the Emma Thompson version of _Sense and Sensibility._  

Steve thinks of those movies now, the relative stateliness of them, the dignity and quiet strength prized in them.  He thinks of the dancing scenes in particular, of the way the most second most intimate touch allowed was the brush of two hands, and the only one more daring was the tangling of a gaze.  

So that’s what he paints, a brightly colored whirl of lacy skirts and slippered feet, tall boots and dark trousers, a low-angle view of giants moving on a dance floor.  And between the feet, moving with surety and laughter and a tentative, slow-bending romance, there are two more dancers, smaller than the others by far.  

The garden spider is long-limbed, dark, with a small central body, her many eyes directed at the crab, but not forgetting to keep watch around her, as well.  Her bottom four legs emerge from a frilly, sheer dress, her upper limbs are encased in long, gently-belled sleeves; the dress is pale rose, with wine-colored piping.

The crab is trying to match her, but he’s not much of a dancer: his legs are going in different directions, and his weight seems oddly balanced.  His eyes, on stalks, are wide, but the devotion in them is real, and his top-hat is perched at a jaunty angle on his shell.

Steve does not give him a cape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes!
> 
> 1) There are three more chapters to go; the next one is the big one, where Tony and Steve have The Talk. So there's that to look forward to.
> 
> 2) Mansfield Park is probably my favorite Jane Austen book, and the movie (but not the one with Rose in it) is quite well-done. Somewhere there is a trailer for Mansfield Park with the dancing very slow, every movement by the actors telegraphing longing. Just gorgeous. Sense and Sensibility, on the other hand, is my favorite Jane Austen movie, despite the age differences which my husband gleefully mocked the whole way through. (He kept drilling and drilling on why Emma Thompson was allowed to play a part she was clearly to old for, and I finally gave in and looked it up, only to find out she WROTE the darned thing. And it's directed by some guy named Ang Lee, it turns out!)
> 
> Also, let's all take a minute to enjoy the idea of Thor and Steve watching Ben Hur together. 
> 
> 3) I put some effort into the critters I picked for the Animal Avengers. There are exceptions (coughgrizzleybearcough), but for the most part, all of them are native to the area around New York City. The ones that aren't are all famous animals. So when Steve's picking a spider, he isn't thinking of a tarantula, he's thinking of the spiders he'd have seen growing up. In this case, the part of Wanda is played by [the black and yellow garden spider](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argiope_aurantia), a large, beautiful, benevolent spider that eats pest-insects and creates very distinctive webs. (The link contains pictures of spiders, so click at your own risk.) I spent less effort picking out the crab, but I noticed there were a lot of them listed and Steve used to live by the docks, so I thought there were good odds on him being familiar with them.


	10. In which a jaguar wears a butterfly mask

They have three more sites to hit, after Colombia and the Falklands:  one each in Egypt and Estonia, which they hit with a back-to-back combo just like they did the first two, and one, between France and Switzerland in the Alps, which Steve recognizes was given to him as a kindness:  it’s surely the first place they took Bucky after his capture.  

He doesn’t tell Wanda or Vision that part; for one thing, Vision probably already knows, and is perfectly capable of telling Wanda himself, but for another…  

Steve’s not sure what the other reason is.  

He just doesn’t, that’s all.

They take four days to process the data they’ve gathered from the first two sites before hitting Egypt and Estonia, and Steve keeps Wanda and Vision with him through it, explaining how the information on staffing, the kinds of intel stored at each facility, and his subjective experience the fight - both _with_ the rest of his team, and _against_ HYDRA - all influence his strategy for the next target.  He isn’t really holding out hope that they’ll become master strategists, but he hopes it’ll help them understand and predict him when they’re in the field together.  

He also drills them together, until Wanda goes right and Vision goes left so often that it might as well be instinct.  “The less time you spend figuring out where your team is, the less time the enemy’s got to shoot at you,” he says, and they nod grimly.  

He trains them to use their powers like explosions, too - both of them have the potential for huge swaths of destruction, and he can’t help but feel he’s been under-utilizing them.  

Finally, after dinner one night, he takes them to the downstairs boxing ring, and when they’ve both stopped laughing - Vision’s laugh, at least, is decently quiet, but Wanda’s has an edge of scornful incredulity to it that makes him wince - he tells them about Bucky training him.  It takes a few hours, but by the end of the night, they’re throwing punches without the telltale hesitation that’s been plaguing them.

And when they’re done, he takes them upstairs and introduces them to hot chocolate.

The best part, though, comes the next night, the night before they head out, while he’s sketching the outlines of yet another painting.  

(It’s yet another dancing scene, this one at a fancy dress party, goats dressed as sailors, armadillos dressed as knights, and crickets made up like gentlemen, all tailored to the nines.  The crowd is just parting enough to see a black panther, lounging against a couch, eyes narrowed, proud, sleekly feminine, and alone, staring through the holes of a patently ridiculous paper mask shaped like a butterfly.  Half a dozen other beasts surround her, each costumed more elaborately than the last, but she pays them no mind; her yellow gaze is focused on something not in view, but just to the right of where the person looking at the painting would stand.)

Wanda knocks on his door.

Steve looks up, for once not startled when interrupted while drawing.  “Hey,” he says, putting down his pencil.  

She smiles at him with the left side of her face, the other side dragging down in uncertainty, and holds up a pair of gloves.

He raises his eyebrows at her.

She shrugs, embarrassed.

Steve smiles warmly.  “Just let me change,” he says.

 

* * *

 

Steve goes through all the information they find personally, for all the sites, but especially for the one in the Alps.  (Natasha must have known he would.)

It doesn’t help.

He finds nothing.

 

* * *

 

The rest of the Avengers are due back a week after the Alps mission - intelligence work takes longer and, in Steve’s opinion, a lot more effort than the smash-and-explode missions do.  Two days before Team Normal People arrive, Steve walks into the kitchen to find Tony Stark making a smoothie.

He freezes, dozens of thoughts running through his head at once, and Tony looks up, spotting him in the doorway.  

“Cap,” he greets him, voice hard in that glossy way he wears like armor.  He scrapes out the blender with a spoon, then licks the spoon clean.  “We should talk.”

“Yes,” Steve agrees, moving towards the counter.  About a lot of things, he thinks.

Tony drops the spoon in the sink and gestures with the glass.  “Join me in my lab?” he invites, except that it’s not really a question.

“No,” Steve says, and Tony comes to an abrupt halt.  “The last couple times we’ve talked in your lab, I seem to remember getting in fights.  Let’s try some place different, for once.”

Tony looks disconcerted.  “All right.”  He shrugs at Steve.  “Where?”

Steve reaches around Tony to grab a root beer out of the fridge.  “Come to my room,” he says, and leads the way.  

 

* * *

 

He should have remembered that he has a painting drying on the easel.  Tony gets into the room, then immediately stops and stares at the jaguar lounging on her chaise.  He walks right up to the painting, leaning forward to stare into the big cat’s yellow eyes, then glances to his right, but of course sees nothing.  “What’s she looking at?” he asks, and Steve decides that at least that means he’s gotten the eyes right.  

“I’m not sure,” Steve tells him.  “She’s opaque.  She could just be thinking, not looking at anything.  Could be looking for something which isn’t there.  Or, she could be looking at the guy I almost always have on my right.”

“Barnes,” Tony says, tensing.

“No,” Steve frowns, “Bucky was always on my left, actually.”  

Tony’s head jerks up, and his eyes are wide.  

“I was actually thinking of Sam,” Steve adds, uncertain.

Tony looks back at the painting, startled, then shakes his head.  “I don’t know what she’s looking at,” he says with certainty, “but it’s not Sam.”

Steve shrugs.  “It’s only up so it can dry, anyway.  Then I’ll put it away in the bin.”  He gestures vaguely at the closet, where the rest of the paintings are stored.  Tony gets a very odd look on his face and investigates, finding the two storage containers, one full, the other halfway.  

He pulls up the skunk and makes a little noise, looking hungrily over the painting, at the way the rest of the people on the wall don’t see the skunk at all, at the pensive look on the skunk’s fluffy face.  

Tony closes his eyes and slides the picture away again.  

“I miss him, too,” he says.  There’s an awful look on his face, betrayal and sadness and confusion all rolled into one stomach-twisting expression.  “Steve, why would he run?”

Steve shrugs again.

Tony sets the storage container down.  “Natasha blames herself,” he says cautiously.  Tony’s too smart to believe Nat’s right, but Steve’s not sure whether or not Tony’s got his own theory.  

“I know she does,” he says regardless, “but I think she’s wrong.”  

Tony doesn’t answer.  He also doesn’t look up.

“I think it was a combination of things,” Steve says softly.  

Now Tony straightens, shooting him an assessing glance.  “Do you think Nat was one of those things?”

“Sure,” Steve says, dragging the easel out of the way, towards the wall.  “But I think Ultron was a bigger one.”  He sits, on ankle over the opposite knee, on the bed.   “And I think Vision was another bigger one,” he adds.  “You and he created a life together, Tony.  You created two of them, and one of them was horrible.  Bruce has to be seeing the parallels with the Hulk.”  He shrugs for a third time, wondering what it is about Tony that always sets him off his game.

Stupid question, really.

“Natasha says he’s not a fighter; that he’s the guy who spends all his time running away from fights, because he knows he’ll win.  Well, you two made something he couldn’t win against - he’s gotta be asking himself if that was deliberate on some level.”

Tony glares.  “Of course n - It wasn’t fucking deliberate, Steve!”

_“I_ know that,” Steve says, annoyed, shifting his weight to the left arm he has propped behind him.  “But each of us Avengers bring our own gifts, and our own neuroses…  Bruce’s self-doubt is always his biggest limitation.”

Tony doesn’t say anything, but that only means he doesn’t tell Steve he’s wrong.  Steve’s a good enough strategist to take the win.

“You know,” he says, nodding his head at the bed beside him, “If you wanted to sit down, there’s plenty of room.”

Tony laughs, a sharp bark.  “Well, that seems appropriate and to-the-point,” he says, and sits on Steve’s left, mimicking his posture, except he leans on both arms, and his feet swing slightly without touching the floor.  

“Is it?” Steve asks, feeling tired.  “You could've wanted to discuss any number of things.”

Tony shakes his head, and Steve persists.

“You could've been wanting to talk about funding.  You could've been wanting to talk about our media presence.  You _could_ have been wanting to talk about that party Pepper’s been emailing me to attend.  You could even have been checking in on how the fight against HYDRA was going.”  Steve swallows, and makes himself say it:  “You coulda been wantin' to talk about Bucky, or about your parents, again.”

Tony shakes his head, opens his mouth.  He loses his nerve for a minute, then squares his shoulders and regains it.  “I owe you an apology,” he says quickly.  

Steve blinks at him, mouth slightly open, because Tony doesn’t exactly apologize often - even, or especially, when he should.

“When we spoke last time…”  Tony kicks his foot out, bouncing it off the springs inside the mattress.  “...I hadn’t really had time to process.”  He closes his eyes, shakes his head.  Opens them again, and Steve meets his gaze like he’s falling into a vat of chocolate.  “I shouldn’t have come after you for it, Steve.  I shouldn’t even have been gunning for Barnes, really.”  Tony’s head tilts, and Steve realizes that it means _I’m sorry._ “The ones responsible are the ones who gave the order, and those are the very sons of bitches you’re fighting.”  

Steve nods, using it to mean, _apology accepted._

Tony breathes out quickly, and Steve recognizes the relief on him because he shares it.  “God,” Tony says, “Can you imagine if Pepper hadn't told me?  If I’d only found out after you’d found him?”

Steve sits up.  “We’re not significantly closer to making that happen than we were right after the Triskelion,” he says sharply.  “I don’t think we were in any danger.”

Tony waves a hand - his turn to diffuse the tension in the room.  “Don’t be an idiot,” he says casually, then changes the subject:  “And this isn’t what I came here to talk about.”

“Then what _are_ you here to talk about?” Steve asks impatiently, still rolling on a head of steam that comes to an abrupt end when he remembers that he already knows the answer to the question.

Tony swallows.  It’s a small gesture, easily missed, but Steve sees it, and backs off from the revealed vulnerability.

“You talked to Pepper,” Tony starts, but then doesn’t go on.

Steve waits, and when the silence starts to stretch too far, says, “Yes,” to prompt him.

He realizes his breath is getting shallow, and closes his eyes, taking an even, counted breath in and out through his mouth, then swipes his tongue over his now-dry lower lip.

When he opens his eyes, Tony’s gaze has to flick upward to meet his.

Steve never spent too much time in the trenches; most of his experience with the war was with small-force strike missions, and _avoiding_ the enemy lines was generally the idea, there.  But you don’t have to have been there too often to remember them: the long, snaking lines of fortifications, the dead zone in the middle.  The ground had been so torn up that almost nothing grew there, but detonations would blossom anyway from the deadly seeds planted under foot.

Steve feels the same way now, like he’s facing a field sown with seeds, and half of them are acorns, but half of them are landmines.  

Judging by the look on Tony’s face, he’s having a similar pattern of thoughts.  

One of them’s gotta say something, though, Steve realizes, watching Tony’s eyes dart, frantic, around the room.  He opens his mouth to speak -

“Look, if it’s not something you want, that’s fine, she said it was a misunderstanding, that you hadn’t been expressing, uh, _interest_ that day in the lab -”

“Tony -”

“I know -”  Tony stops, starts again.  “I just thought…  I heard you, that night, you know.”  He licks his lips, and Steve watches the way the shadows chase themselves around his face, watches the way the hairs of his goatee move when he talks.  The raccoon, Steve decides, had been too simplistic for Tony.  Maybe he should try again...

“What did you hear?”

“I heard you say,” Tony closes his eyes, not looking at Steve as he says it, “That while Carter was hoping you would be a beta, _you_ were hoping for Omega.”  He reopens his eyes, and really, Tony’s gaze sees far too much.  “Even though you were sure you’d be an Alpha, you said.”

Steve nods, heard thudding double-time in his chest.

“And _then_ I heard you say,” Tony continues, “That you had been almost completely certain that Barnes, a Beta - a smelly Beta?” he checks in with Steve, and Steve nods.  “- That Barnes was going to come home an Alpha.”  He tips his head, challenging.  “You said that in the lab, the time before last.”

Steve nods again.

“And _that_ would have left you and Barnes as an Alpha keeping an Omega, wouldn’t it?”

Steve’s eyes are closed, now, squeezed tight against the strong emotion he can feel trying to crawl out of his chest.  He nods a third time.  

“How long had you been trying to turn Omega for?” Tony asks, “Getting into fights all the time to provoke trauma, understanding the physical limitations of your body, trying to make the mental changes necessary for it?”

That wasn’t a yes or no question; Steve was going to have to speak to answer.  “That wasn’t the reason I got into fights,” he tries, but Tony’s snort says he knows it’s bullshit.  “It _wasn't,"_ Steve insists, because they'd been fights that needed to be fought.  "But...  ‘Bout a decade,” he folds, not opening his eyes.

“You were never even close, were you?”

“Not even a little bit,” Steve gasps.  He cranks his eyes open and edges his head towards Tony.   _“Tony,”_ he insists, “It _never mattered.”_

Tony doesn’t say anything.

“Bucky and I were together when we were both Betas, and we were together when we were an Alpha and a Beta - even though it was against the regs, Bucky coulda gotten thrown out if they knew -”

“But not you?” Tony demands, and Steve shakes his head like he’s dislodging a mosquito.

“I was Captain America,” Steve says bitterly, “I coulda been sleeping with three Betas and a harem of dancing boys, they weren’t gonna throw me out.”  He glares, not at Tony, but at a remembered insult.  “You know they asked me if I wanted to register Jacques as my Kept Omega?”

“Jacques... Dernier?” Tony frowns, naming the demolitions expert of the Howling Commandos.  “I didn’t even know he _was_ an Omega.”

Steve shrugs.  “We didn’t spread it around or anything, but yeah, he was.  Anyway.”  He shifts his legs, changing which ankle is propped over which knee.  “I wasn’t with Bucky because we were both Betas, and I wasn’t with him later because I was a kinky Alpha.  I was with him because he was _Bucky._

“And you’re the same way.  I ain’t into you because you’re an Alpha, and I ain’t into you because you used to be an Omega, I’m into you because -”

Steve stops talking, because Tony’s hands have tightened to the point of white knuckles around the blanket.  

“Because I’m me,” Tony finishes for him, his own breath coming rapidly now.

Steve nods.

“But - just to be clear -”  Tony doesn’t look away _at all._ “You _are_ into me.”

Steve doesn’t say anything, because he’s no good with words about this - he either says the wrong thing, or winds up saying nothing at all.  

So he doesn’t try.

He leans forward and kisses Tony, instead.

Steve’s kissed people before, of course - more than just Bucky and Peggy.  But not a _lot_ more, and anyway, yeesh, there’s such a thing as being polite.  So he really only intends it to be a brush of lips, a declaration of intent - a substitute for the words he can never manage to say.

Tony’s got other ideas, though, and hauls him in tight, nipping on his lower lip, tilting his head for a better angle.  He licks along the seem of Steve's mouth, and Steve opens for him, tongues twisting together in a way that makes Steve moan.  Tony moans back, saying, “Oh, God, I knew you would like that,” and _exactly how much has Tony been thinking about this, anyway?_

“A lot, a lot, _so much,”_ Tony says in what it takes Steve an embarrassingly long time to realize is an answer to him, pressing little kisses under his - Jesus, under his _ear,_ and apparently that is a very sensitive area, because Steve shivers and makes a gurgling noise.  “I think about this _all the time,_ I have for _years,_ seriously, _so many years -_ since I was in _high school,_ and I was in high school when I was _twelve -”_

Steve realizes that his left hand is hauling Tony into his lap, and his right hand is inches away from where the arc reactor would be if it were still there.  Conveniently, that’s almost exactly over Tony’s left nipple, so Steve grabs it through Tony’s t-shirt and twists.

Tony yelps, and bucks into Steve; Steve presses a kiss to the corner of Tony’s mouth, saying, “Careful - sound carries here.”

For a moment, Tony’s eyes glitter, like being given a constraint is the best thing Steve could have done for him.  And Steve almost - _almost -_ gives in to the challenge.

He’s able to pull back now, though; able to take a deep breath or ten and get his brain back online.  When Tony leans in to kiss him, he’s able to put a hand on Tony’s chest to hold him off.

“Oh, what - you’re going to wind me up like that and then stop?” Tony boggles at him.  “How you are not at _least_ half as mindless with lust as I am right now?”

“What makes you think I’m not?” Steve asks, still breathing hard.  “Although, Tony - if you want me mindless with lust, maybe _try_ not to mention twelve-year-olds?”

Tony opens his mouth to fire back, then stops, looking rueful.  “Okay, no, that - that’s fair,” he admits.  “It was a twelve-year-old _me,_ though, so I still don’t believe that’s actually why you stopped.”

“No,” Steve agrees.  “I just - we should talk.”  He leans his head forward, resting his forehead against Tony’s.  His right hand rests on Tony’s chest, right in the center.

“You keep doing that,” Tony notices.  “It’s like you miss it.”

“I do miss it,” Steve says.  “Not, I mean - I know it wasn’t great for you, I’m glad it’s gone, but -”

“No, I get it,” Tony rescues him.  “It was iconic.”

_“Yes,”_ Steve says.  “It was you - bright, beautiful, dangerous, daring, Hail Mary and technologically genius.  It turned a weakness into a strength, powered and protected you in the flashiest way possible, God help us.  So yeah - I kinda miss it.”

Tony stares at him, blinking a little bit, like Steve has just revealed the formula for the Serum or something, then shakes his head and presses his lips gently to Steve’s again.  

“Okay,” he says, “So let’s talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First things first: Yes, I know, it's a bit of a cliffhanger. Sorry. I'll get the next chapter done as soon as possible, I hopefully the next two days.
> 
> Second: Hands up, who here loves the idea of Natasha as a jaguar wearing a little paper butterfly mask? Like that comes anywhere close to hiding what she is.


	11. In which a wolf sits in the snow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 10/07/2016 because I realized I'd written some contradictions in. Oops. -_-;

“I guess we should start with the elephant in the room,” Tony says, not moving his forehead from Steve’s.  “Barnes.”

Steve hears himself make an unhappy noise.

“You said - well, you didn’t say it, but I heard it, anyway - that you were in love with him.”  Tony sounds about as miserable as it’s possible for a Stark to be.  “And I know he’s still _out there -”_

“Tony, stop,” Steve says, and winces:  his own voice sounds tired, like he’s been going for days.  And he sort of has - there’s the art, there’s the mission planning, there’s the mission review, there’s training, and more training, and that emergency last week where they had to drop their plans and race over to Iowa to stop a Hulk-knockoff - even though, Steve could have sworn, there wasn’t actually anything _in_ Iowa for the not-Hulk _to_ smash - but that’s not what this is.

“If you didn’t want to start this until you knew whether you would be doing it with Barnes, instead,” Tony insists softly, “I would understand.  If you wanted to _wait -_ if I was in your _Maybe list -”_

“There isn’t a list,” Steve says, exasperated.

“No, of course _you_ wouldn’t have one -”

“No, I mean, the last three people I asked out were Thor - who wasn’t interested - my neighbor Kevin - who turned me down and started talking about infectious diseases - and Maria Hill,” Steve says, “Who laughed herself sick.”

Tony stares at him, totally distracted.  “Why on Earth would you hit on _Hill?”_ he sputters.

“Because she can take out a four-pack of HYDRA agents with one hand tied behind her back, and also her legs make me think about licking things?” Steve answers, confused by Tony’s confusion.  “She _Maria Hill,_ I think she’s pretty - uh.”

 _“Lickable_ is somehow not the first word that comes to my mind,” Tony argues.  Then asks, like he’s watching a car wreck, “What did she _say?”_

“You mean when she _stopped_ laughing?” Steve asks glumly.  “She said that if she wanted to have sex with men, she would already have five kids by now, but that if Loki ever turned me into a woman, she hoped she was the first one I called.”

“Wow.”  Tony’s eyes are wide.  “That is a mental image that I will treasure forever, thank you, Steven.  Holy shit.”  His head tilts to the side.  “Do you think you’d be a pre-Serum girl, or a post-Serum girl?  Because you pre-Serum would look like Evanna Lynch, but you post-Serum would look a lot like Captain Marvel -”

Steve groans, and lets his head fall to rest on Tony’s shoulder.  

Tony grins at him; he can feel the cheek moving by his ear.  

“No, really, Cap - you were making a point, here.  About your  _Maybe_ list?”

“My point is that I don’t have one,” Steve says.  “I have a _Yes_ list, a _Turned Me Down_ list, and a very extensive _No_ list.”  He pauses, then adds for the sake of honesty, “I also have a couple people I _could_ be interested in, so if you _had_ told me no, I would have moved on.”  It's...  _mostly_ true.

“What, no pining forever until you waste away _a la_ Ophelia?”

“I’ve gotten rejected a lot,” Steve says shortly, burned mostly by the sting of old wounds.  “I’ve gotten good at it.”  

“That is stupid, and based on the actions of stupid people,” Tony grouses.  

 _“Maria Hill,”_ Steve says pointedly.  

“Fine - stupid people and lesbians, then.”  Tony squints at the ceiling.  “Do you think she’s Out?”

“I think that regardless, it should have been obvious she wouldn’t be interested.”

“Yeah, but who wouldn’t be interested in _you?”_ Tony asks, sincerely baffled, and Steve presses a kiss to his mouth, firm but brief.

“My point,” Steve says, “Is that there is no _Maybe_ list, so we are not going to put you in limbo until the day - unknowably far in the future - when I find Bucky and come to a decision one way or another.”

“The thing is - and I know that this is going to make you angry to hear it, but it’s the truth, and it’s only half about you.  At most - at _most_ half.”  Tony waves a hand, but doesn’t move away from the easy slide of Steve’s arm around him.

“The thing is, if you tell me you’re choosing me over Bucky, I flat won’t believe you.”

Steve listened to this impassively, then leaned forward gave Tony a hug, letting his chin rest on the straight line of his shoulder the way he’d wanted to for _three years_ now.  

“I’m not choosing you over Bucky,” Steve says, hating to sound like Tony’d argued him into a corner because this is something Steve has _thought about,_ damnit, and he was already inhabiting the corner _just fine_ before Tony showed up today.  “...Because I can’t.  But I also refuse to choose him over you.”  

Steve stops here and straightens his posture until he and Tony are looking at each other square on, to make sure that Tony knows he has Steve’s full attention (and vice versa).

“When I came here, to this future-world, lost and confused after seventy years in the ice, I met a lot of people - I met _you -_ and you quickly became my secret infatuation.  Not something I would act on - certainly not so soon, because Tony, I was still _grieving,_ the love of my life had just _died,_ and so did _everybody else -_ but more than attractive enough to notice.  In flashes, peaking out from beneath your spiky armor.”

“There aren’t actually any spikes,” Tony grumbles.  

Steve rolls his eyes a little.  “They’re metaphorical spikes, Tony.  And yes, they’re there.

“So for two years, I lived in a world without Bucky.  Where the man I loved was dead, and I had to deal with that, and recover, and move onward.

“And I mostly _did._ I found a place to be useful, I found a team I trusted.  I found friends.  And I found that with a little effort, I was mostly able to see beneath your spiky armor, pretty much all the time.”

“Again with the spikes?”

“You’re a spiky kinda guy,” Steve says affectionately.   Tony gives him a scared little half a smile.

“And you could see beneath it all the time?” he asks, voice a little subdued.

Steve kisses Tony’s forehead.  “Mostly.”

Tony snorts.

“So here I was, living in this new world, _adapting,_ and then I found out that Bucky might not be gone.  He’s not dead, he’s alive, and there’s this whole other world, a real alternate reality where he can come back and we can be together again.”  

Tony makes an aborted squeak, and Steve shakes his head to hold him off.

“The thing is, Tony, I _don’t know_ if that alternate reality can ever join this one.  

“Maybe the Bucky I know really _isn’t_ buried under the layers of brainwashing any more.  Maybe he’ll never come back.  Maybe he pulled me out of the Potomac and went and put a bullet in his brain.  Maybe he was chemically gelded in the process of becoming the Winter Soldier.  Maybe a _lot_ of things.

“But in this world, Tony, in this reality, I know what’s in front of me.  And I’d have to be an idiot to exchange a certainty for a possibility.

 _“Especially_ if that certainty is you.”

Tony’s eyes are wide, his pupils huge, staring at Steve with his mouth all scrunched up.  Steve just waits, giving him time to process, and Tony gets up and bounces around the room, touching the closet door, poking at the nightstand, opening the door to the room - Steve’s heart clenches - looking out, and closing it again.  

Tony turns, and puts his back to the door.  

“First of all,” he says, talking to the floor, but they are _good,_ they are _just fine,_ because this is his _sarcastic asshole_ voice, the version of it he brings out when he’s _happy -_ “I resent the implication that I’m a sure thing.”

“You said since you were _twelve_ , Tony,” Steve says, but he’s failing pretty miserably at hiding the smile crawling its way across his face.  

“Don’t mention twelve-year-olds, Cap.  Jesus, at a time like this, what’s wrong with you?”

Steve laughs, posture easing until he’s lounging back on his hands again.  

“Second of all,” Tony says, “I’m not hearing you refusing to choose.  I’m hearing something that sounds a lot like choosing me over him, which is -”

“Nah,” Steve starts.

“Which is _very flattering -”_

“It would be, yes,” Steve says cockily.

 _“-_ but I _still_ don’t believe you -”

 _“Tony!”_ Steve says, not quite loud enough to be a shout, but loud enough to cut through the line of bullshit Tony’s working himself down right now.  “I’m not choosing you over him -”  

Tony rolls his eyes, and opens his mouth to start again, and Steve cuts him off before he gets the chance.

“- Because I’m _not choosing.”_

Well, that did it.

“You’ve got Pepper.  I sort of didn’t think you’d be too attached to monogamy, all things considered.”

Tony double-takes, then starts laughing, crossing the room to flop on his back onto Steve’s bed.  “You know,” he says, gasping between chuckles, “If I told anyone, no one would believe Captain America’s a polygamist.”

“Don’t be nasty, Tony,” Steve says primly.  “Utah’s a state, too.”

Tony howls, a peal of laughter making him press his hands to his chest and belly.  “They don’t even _practice_ polygamy in Utah, Steve!  It’s not even _legal_ there, hasn’t been for _years!”_

“I don’t care,” Steve tells him.  “Hey, speaking of you telling people about this…”

“Don’t say you’re going into the closet.  You, of all people?  I won’t believe it.”

“No,” Steve agrees.  But the thought of telling people makes his stomach churn, and he wishes like hell he _could._  “No, I’m not.  But, I mean…  We don’t have to _advertise,_ do we?”  He sends a pleading glance over and down at Tony, and Tony looks at him thoughtfully before shaking his head.  

“We don’t, actually,” he says, “And it would be easier on me - on us both - if they never found out, but of course they will.  Still.   It’ll be some time in the future, I can have Pep get us all prepared - press notices, that sort of thing - and in the meantime, being on the Avengers will cover a lot of it.  Our reputations will cover more.”

That is true; Steve’s well-known for being straight-laced, the public apparently not knowing this one last thing about him, and Tony has only ever been photographed with women - one of the reasons Steve had been convinced he didn’t have a chance with the futurist.  

“We can tell the team, though, right?” Steve asks hopefully, and Tony gives him a soft little smile that’s usually reserved for Pepper, Rhodey, or - most often - one of the bots.

“Sure, Steve,” he says, “We can tell the team.”

Steve pretty much _has_ to roll over and kiss him, then, but the urgency of earlier is settled, subsided into a quiet sweetness which is…

...pretty exquisite, actually.  

 

* * *

 

Half an hour later, they’ve stilled, Steve curling little bits of Tony’s hair around his finger in fascination, Tony sprawled on top of Steve’s chest and swiping an index finger around the shell of his ear, then bringing it down and flicking the lobe back and forth, then repeating.  That earlobe is pretty sensitive, but Steve figures he can tell Tony that approximately _never,_ because it’s a good sensitive, and he therefore can’t really form words right now.

“Wait,” Tony says suddenly, looking up into Steve’s face.  Then he props himself on his elbows and leans up to peer into him more closely.  “You mean you _haven’t_ told the team?”

Ah, damn it.

He has to focus again.  

His ear tingles from where Tony’s finger should be.

“Technically,” Steve says, “I only told Sam.”

“Oh,” Tony says.

 _“Why_ does that surprise you?” Steve asks in exasperation.  

Tony shrugs.  “I guess I just figured you for a talk-it-out-with-everyone kind of guy,” he says.  

“That was why I told _Sam,”_ Steve says in exasperation.  “And he’s actually _really good_ at talking things out, so I didn’t really _need_ to bring it to anyone else.”  

He almost doesn’t add this next bit, but Tony _is_ asking.

“Also, Wanda knows, but that’s because Viz told her.”

“So who told him?”  Tony’s eyebrows knit together suspiciously.

“Well, _apparently,”_ Steve drawls, _“Somebody_ kept, at last count, _two hundred and nineteen pictures of me_ on his phone…”

Tony grabs the pillow and presses it over his own face.

Steve yanks it away, and kisses him again.

 

* * *

 

Much, much later, Steve wakes from a light doze to see Tony sitting on the floor by the closet, looking over the paintings in the sliver of light from the hallway.  

Steve grunts - give him another thirty seconds, and he’ll be awake enough to make it to a grumble - and pulls his shirt back on, re-buttons his pants.  

(Tony, Steve had discovered, had not actually had sex with an Alpha since he was twenty, and had _never_ had non-missionary sex with one.  And Steve had never had sex with an Alpha at all.

They’d made it work.  

Tony, it turns out, has an oral fixation.  Steve’s more about using his body, which, as Tony had pointed out, was fair, considering the body Steve’s been given.

At any rate, as long as they don’t try to take each other’s knots without a whole lot of prep, Steve figures they’ll be fine.  It can't be _that_ different from how it was with a Beta.)

He crawls off the bed and staggers over to Tony, setting down beside him with a soft _whump._

“Hey,” Tony says, not looking up from the painting of the lioness.

Steve immediately feels guilty, but doesn’t say anything.

Tony brushes his fingers through the air over the lioness’s neck, that despairing curve that had caused Steve such trouble.  “You didn’t know her, did you?” Tony asks, and Steve shakes his head.  

“Not even before the war.  I think she was a lot younger than your dad.”

“She was,” Tony agrees.  “But how did you do it, then?  You’ve managed to capture her…  Jesus, it’s almost perfect.”  He frowns lightly.  “For a furry, anyway.  Anything I should know about that?”

Steve explains how the anthropomorphism allows humans to identify more clearly with the emotions of the image.

Tony looks at him, deadpan.  “Uh-huh,” he says when Steve’s done.  “So how’d you do it?  Get her so well?”

Steve shrugs.  “Pepper told me a lot,” he offers.  “And I knew your dad, right?  So I looked at you and I looked at your dad, and sort of… subtracted, I guess.”

Tony doesn’t react visibly, but Steve can feel his thigh pressing in against his own, out of sight behind the picture.  

“I used to think,” Tony says thoughtfully, “That everything that was good in me came from Mom, and everything that was bad came from Dad.”

“No,” Steve says, denying instinctively before he realizes it might not be polite.

“No,” Tony agrees, though.  “I know that’s not true, now.”  He stares at the lioness a little more, then shakes his head.  “A lot of my _favorite_ parts come from her, though.”

“Well, that’s fair,” Steve says.  “One of _my_ favorite parts comes from her.”

Tony looks up.

“Your capacity to care,” Steve says softly.  “I figured it out, when Pepper told me.  Howard was brilliant, witty, charming - a lot like you - but he never cared, not half so much.”  He reaches into the box and pulls out the picture of the hyena blindly, setting it on his knees next to the lioness.  Tony gasps, choking, and leans his head against Steve’s bicep, watching the two paintings gleam in the yellow light together.

“It would be easier if he had never cared at all.”  Tony’s voice is stuffy and small, and abruptly, Steve can’t listen to it any more.  He packs away the hyena, then the lioness, which Tony hands over with only a second’s hesitation, then reaches in and pulls out the bear, instead.  

Tony laughs, only a little wetly, and brushes his finger oh-so-delicately over the bright form of the dragonfly, the curvy sass of the ladybug.  He does a double-take - “Wait, is that a _coyote_ at the bar?  Did you _know….?”_ But of course Steve had known, that was why it was a coyote.

They chuckle over the rest of them, Tony getting a bit sniffly about the raccoon, which Steve is now thoroughly unsatisfied with, seeing all the little flaws and missed opportunities in the thing. When he goes to slide the last painting away, though, Tony stops him.  “You’re missing one,” he says, voice puzzled, and Steve goes still.  

“Tony…”

“No, you _are._ And it’s _important,”_ Tony insists.  “You’re the heart of all of this, the moral compass that keeps us pointing North.”

“You should probably stop arguing with me, then,” Steve grouses, and Tony blows him off with an, “Oh, please.

“I never said you were the _brains_ of this.  But you can’t do all these beautiful paintings of everybody else and skip yourself, Steve.  That’s not...  That's not okay.”

Steve gives him an exasperated look, but it’s clear, really, that Tony isn’t budging.  

“I’m going to hang every one of these somewhere prominent, I hope you realize that, right?” Tony asks, and something un-knots in Steve’s chest, because he’s been trying to figure out what to do with the paintings for _months_ now.  

Somehow, two boxes in his closet never quite seemed fitting.

“I’m not hanging an incomplete set.  Get on it, Rogers.  Chop chop.”

Steve shuts him up by kissing him again.  

Really, they should have started doing this years ago.  It would have been so much better for team morale…

 

* * *

  

Because one ignores Tony Stark at one’s own peril, Steve does actually toss around some ideas for the painting of himself the next day.  (Tony has had to go back to New York - charity gala the next night, “And a shit-ton of research in the meantime,” Tony’d added with grim purpose.)  

Steve is deeply grateful to whatever muse has guided him that he’s already used up the bald eagle on Rhodes.

He thinks about a racehorse, all powerful muscle thundering down the track, and immediately, almost vengefully, discards the idea.  A crocodile is his next thought, and that one is tempting - laying low in the water, watching, contemplating - but he thinks it would probably stretch credulity to try to describe himself as “cold-blooded”.  He thinks about a wolf - maybe a lonely one, isolated from its pack, all scarred up -

But no.  Now that he thinks of it, he knows what to do with that image.  He sketches it out quickly, imagining the palest blue gleam of the canny, expressionless eyes, the alert tilt of the ears, the scars across muzzle and shoulders.  The wolf is sitting in the snow - lying, really, back legs tucked close behind it -  with a backdrop of mountains; the snow around it stretches, barren dunes of cold, and the wolf faces the viewer almost like a mug shot, surrounded by all that nothing and loneliness.  Impulsively, Steve outlines a splash of fresh, bright-red blood around the carnivore, the only bright color in the picture.

He gives it a black motorcycle jacket with a pale sheepskin lining; one sleeve hangs loose over the missing forepaw.

Then Steve goes back to tossing around the possibilities as he stores the wolf in the closet.  A bull is too brainless, although the anger is right.  A hippogriff comes to mind, and he has to admit he sort of likes the idea, but none of the _other_ animals were mythical...

Someone knocks at the door, and then Natasha sticks her head around it before he can answer.  “Working hard?” she asks, eyebrows raised.

Steve realizes that he’s sitting on his bed in jeans and a t-shirt, staring at nothing.  “Yep,” he says.  “You’re back early.”  He lets the smile she’s gonna see anyway curl around his face, pleasure in the tilt of his head.  

“We are,” she agrees.  “Done for now with being the scourge of terrorists everywhere.”  She quirks an eyebrow at him in a gesture that could mean… anything, really.  It’s Natasha.  “I hadn’t realized how much fun Rhodes was.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty great,” Steve agrees, getting up and giving her a hug.   

They wind up settling on the bed because Steve doesn’t actually have a chair in his room - he’d gotten rid of it to make room for the easel - and Nat stalls by telling him about Clint and Sam having a target competition along the lines of Legolas and Gimli.  It’s funny, but Steve just says, “Uh-huh,” and waits.

She doesn’t quite smile at him.  Steve’s pretty touched by the show of trust, to be honest.

“I’ll let you know when I’m ready to talk about it,” she says, rueful.  “Let’s talk about you, instead, you’re _much_ more interesting.  What were you working on?”

“Let’s walk and talk,” Steve says, because all the beer is in the kitchen and if the rest of the team is back, the rest of the team is most likely there, too.  As they head over, he explains all the animals which are unsuitable to represent him.

“What about a donkey?” she teases, a smile hiding in the corner of her mouth as the come into the kitchen where, as predicted, Sam and Clint are checking in with Wanda.

“First of all, bite me,” Steve tells her seriously.  

Her eyes crinkle up at the corners.

“Second of all…”  He sighs plaintively.  “...a little help, here?”

She shrugs.  “I like the image of the hippogryph,” she says.  “But I think you have an inner Harry Potter riding it, and that’s really a different kind of painting.”  

She’s giving him shit, but…   “Huh,” Steve says, eyeballing her as he accepts a Bud Light from Sam.  “You may have a point…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes!  
> 1\. Wolves are pack animals, and - in this fic, anyway - Steve knows that. So the characterization of Bucky as a wolf is less about his prowess with the ladies once upon a time and more about being the fuck alone.
> 
> Which does not stop me from calling that picture "sad wolf in snow"...
> 
> 2\. I did mention that I'm keeping this fic Teen, right? I could be persuaded to write the sex scene if enough people asked for it, but it's not something I really felt the need for, myself. Hopefully, I managed enough detail to give a general idea of what went down that the lack of explicitness doesn't offend, *and* that I managed to address the "two alphas" thing.
> 
> 3\. One chapter to go, plus an after-credits scene. It's already drafted except for the AC scene, and I'm working on that as soon as I post this, so I should be able to edit tomorrow. (Does anyone know how you got about finding a beta reader?)


	12. In which a mouse is a creature of great personal valour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have the patience of a hypercaffeinated three-year-old; here, have the last chapter!
> 
> Also: [The Grasshopper Mouse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohd_mSIWTXk), ladies and gentlemen! _Metal as fuck!_

The last painting is a little too much fun to do.  

It’s not a hippogryph, and the rider isn’t Harry Potter.

Instead, the jockey in the painting is a Grasshopper Mouse, wearing a cowboy hat and a leather jacket, flare-leg jeans and low-heeled boots.  One little mouse arm is wrapped around the neck of its steed, the expression in its big eyes pensive and determined, which Steve thinks might be what his face really looks like when he’s planning (although he could just look constipated; _he’d_ never know).  

The mouse is clinging to the neck of a wild turkey.

The thing about turkeys is that they’re _big damned birds;_ weighing somewhere around twenty to twenty-five pounds, in a lot of cases, and that’s not taking into consideration that the feathers are very low-density.  They have layers and layers of feathers, arcing back to, of course, that magnificent round tail.  Steve, who Googled wild turkeys when he got this idea, gives the tail just a hint of a spade shape to indicate that the turkey is on the young side of adult - mature, but only just.

Unlike domestic turkeys, wild ones can and do fly - they’re pretty agile - but this turkey is on the ground, charging, sharp-clawed legs reaching forward, the impressive breadth of its breast seemingly taking up the whole painting, the blue iridescence of it feathers shimmering.  There’s dust rising up around the two, which is less about how turkeys move, and more about what happens in a cavalry charge.  

And, yes, the mouse is planning, strategizing; it’s clearly the driving force that ordered the attack.  But the thing you can just barely see in the gape of its mouth and the electric line of its tail is that, at the same time, the mouse is having the time of its life.

Steve finds himself, over and over again, grinning as he paints.

 

* * *

 

They get five days off while Hill reviews their data.  Natasha and Clint skip town, but Steve, Vision, and Rhodey help for the first two days, pointing out loose ends and weaknesses. They spend hours at it, Vision pinging through their data on the immense processors Tony’s made available to them (although he still frowns at having to use a keyboard), Rhodey and Hill putting their heads together to go over the sites.  Steve listens, and coordinates between them, picking up the details that get dropped because paying attention to minutia is basically what he _does…_

And the whole time, he’s got a sketchbook in his hands.  At one point, Hill looks over his shoulder and, when she sees the next update for the _Marisa Knoll_ comics, smiles and pats his head.  

Which is weird, but, Steve can admit, kind of nice.

 

* * *

 

On the third day, Steve gets a request from Tony to join him in Manhattan, and begs off.

He takes the bike down, enjoying the feel of the wind in his hair, the necessity of focus on the bike making it harder to be nervous.

A little bit, anyway.

But the only reason Steve hadn’t followed Tony down to Manhattan immediately was that Tony had said he had work to do.  If Tony’s asking for him, that means the work is done… and it’s play time.

And, yeah, they’d messed around in Steve’s room, but there were places they hadn’t gone - places that could be deal breakers if it turns out Tony doesn’t like them.  He might not; it’s been twenty years since Tony messed around with this kind of thing, and kinks, Steve knows, can _change…_ But they hadn’t been able to explore any further, because - let’s face it - that would’ve required certain supplies that Steve _just didn’t have_ in his room at HQ…

He gets to the tower around three, parking in the garage underneath because the attendant waves him in, just as he’d known he would.  He hesitates a minute, but then takes the shield with him; Tony’ll understand why he can’t leave it with the bike.

The elevator doesn’t have JARVIS in it, of course, and Steve’s never _not_ going to miss him.

It’s a long damned ride up to the penthouse, he thinks.  

A long, loooong ride.  

In silence.  

There _was_ elevator music, but it sounded like it’d been composed in 1612 for a lute, so that didn’t count... 

The elevator doors open on the penthouse, and Steve feels a spurt of annoyance:  It’s not just Tony in the room.  Pepper, Steve thinks, he might have expected; he’d known getting into this that Pepper was a given in Tony’s life, the point from which you start before you do anything.  And Pepper watching while Tony walks up and kisses Steve - softly, sweetly, not at all the way you’d expect Tony Stark to kiss, really, but all the more precious for that - well.  It’s embarrassing, but not in an untenable way; more like the Captain America costume, before Steve’d gotten used to the way it hugged his thighs.

But having _Natasha_ watch it really throws him off his game.

It would be really great, he thinks, if Tony could let him know what was a summons for romantic reasons, and what was a summons for _work,_ because Steve had come _this close_ to showing up with flowers.

If he hadn’t been on the bike, he would have.

“So,” Tony says, bouncing a little on his heels.  “I might have been working on something.”

Pepper waves to Steve, who smiles and nods back; then she rolls her eyes and turns back to whatever she was reading on her tablet.

Natasha’s sitting at the low coffee-table, going over something on a laptop.

“What were you working on?” Steve asks gamely.

He has _no_ idea what’s going on, now; Natasha’s presence indicates this isn’t personal, but if that’s the case, why aren’t they doing this at the Upstate HQ?  Why not invite the others to join them?  And why come directly to Steve, instead of going through Hill, as usual?

“Remember when Loki was trying to take over the world, and we were trying to find him?” Tony starts, and Steve gives him a sharp look in reply, because yes, he does remember that; almost ancient history, by their standards, and certainly by Tony’s, which change and update a hair faster even than modern technology does.

“We basically hacked every camera on the planet,” Natasha says from the couch, scooting over into the corner to indicate that Steve and Tony should join her.  “And when that wasn’t enough, we hacked every spectrometer, too.”  She crosses her shapely legs, meeting Steve’s eyes, propping the laptop on her lap with the screen turned away from him.  “It was _very_ illegal.  If it weren’t for the massive threat that Loki, in combination with the Tesseract, presented, we never would have done it.”

“Well, nice to know Nick has some limits on how far he’ll impinge personal freedom,” Steve says grimly, and out of the corner of the eye he sees Tony wince.

“Well, _he_ might,” Tony says shortly, “But I don’t."

Steve whips his head around to look at him.  Tony's got tension riding the lines of his shoulders, but he also has excitement bracing his wrists as they swing in small circles.

“Tracking and sorting algorithms working 24-hours a day for the last two weeks, facial recognition software that overheated seventeen times, not to mention the behavioral analysis program sorting through the probable hits -” Tony’s saying, and then Natasha turns the laptop around so that Steve can see the screen.  “- We found him.  He’s in Romania,” he says, and Steve gapes at the image of Bucky buying apricots.

He looks at Tony, his heart in his eyes.

He looks at Natasha, throat closing up.

Nat hands him the laptop.  “Come on,” she says dispassionately, “You can cry on the plane.  I’m flying.”

 

* * *

 

When they get there, Nat stays on the jet so that they can bundle Bucky in for a quick getaway if necessary, and Tony’s on the roof in the Suit, because they thought there was a possibility they’d need the high-powered flying backup. 

Steve goes in the front door. 

“You sure you’re okay with this, Tony?” he asks over the com.  They haven’t had any time for themselves - the ‘Jet is remarkably small when you want to have a private conversation - and while Steve knows Natasha’s still listening in, at least this way he can  _pretend_ that it’s just the two of them.

“I’m sure,” Tony says.  “I know you care.  About both of us, I mean.”  Steve hears the pause, wonders if it’s mechanical - some problem with the suit - or intentional.  “That’ll do me fine.  I mean, I’ve still got Pep, it’s not like I’m the poster-boy for life-bonding.”

“You know...” Steve says, starting to climb the stairs.  Bucky lives on the fifth floor, so it’s going to take him a while.  “...Pepper likened the two of us to an Alpha keeping an Omega.”

Tony’s snort is warm in his ear.  “Which of us is supposed to be the Omega?”

“I think it’s me,” Steve admits.  

This snort is actually a laugh.  “Yeah, Omega’s the first thing I think of when I look at you,” Tony snarks.

“Well, I don’t think she was saying personality-wise…  I think it was more that Alphas aren’t particularly expected to be monogamous within certain contexts.”  Steve shrugs, takes the next set of stairs.  “And as contexts go, yours comes closer than mine.”

He manages another flight - two more to go - before Tony replies.  

“We are what we are, Steve.  We love who we love.  I love Pepper; I have for… far longer than I’ve been aware of it.  And I love you, which, actually, wasn’t something I saw working out nearly as well as it has.  Do you love me?”

One flight to go.

 _“Yes,”_ Steve says roughly.  “Yes, Tony.”  The he makes sure to smile, so that the teasing comes through the com when he adds,  “In all your idiosyncrasies.”

“Oh, well, fuck you, too,” Tony laughs.  “Right in _your_ idiosyncrasy.   _We’ll_ be all right, Steve,” he adds, voice serious again.  “Go get your friend.”

Too late to chicken out now, Steve thinks, standing in that run-down apartment building.  

In retrospect, that’s kind of the anthem of his life.

He knocks.

 

* * *

The End!

* * *

 

Notes! 

1\.  Chapter title from Britten's [Rejoice in the Lamb](https://youtu.be/VsZP-IH8XbM?t=7m12s).  If you follow the link, the particular movement starts at 7:12, and it's both oddly lovely, and perfectly Steve:  "For the mouse is a creature of great personal valour, for - this is a true case - Cat takes female mouse, Male mouse will not depart, but stands threat'ning and daring. 'If you will let her go, I will engage you, as prodigious a creature as you are!' "

*can't stop laughing at Mouse!Steve*

2\.  Wild Turkeys!  Y'all know about Ben Franklin and the turkey thing, right?  [Look at these bastards](http://blogs.bu.edu/sargentchoice/files/2013/11/wild-turkey.jpg)!  [Look at them](http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/1doug0418.jpg)! Now imagine riding one of those mofos into battle.  Fuck, yeah!  Captain America!

Guys, I had  _so much fun_ coming up with Animal!Steve.

3\.  Okay, so here's something a little different:  Who here has read  _The Princess Bride?_ Not seen the movie - although, if you haven't done either, stop what you're doing right now and fix that, because there is no more perfect work of fiction, srsly - but read the book.  If you have read the book, do you remember the ending?  

That's basically what I wanted to do here.  

For those who haven't read it, basically what the author does is he has two endings.  In one, Wesley and Buttercup ride off into the sunset, everything is wonderful, yadda yadda yadda.  And then, we are told, his grandfather stopped reading, closed the book, and said, "The End".  And until the author (who purports to be the editor) went and "read" the book himself, he didn't even know there  _was_ another ending.  But there is, and, if you want, you can keep reading and know it yourself.  But be warned, this is the realistic ending.  

I don't remember how he says it exactly, but it winds up being something along the lines of, "They rode off into the sunset, and then twenty minutes later everything went wrong."

 

So!  Who's up for an after-credits scene?

 

* * *

 After Credits Scene!

* * *

 

Bucky doesn’t answer, at first.  Tony can see him in the apartment, though, courtesy of the infrared:  pacing, back and forth, over to the door, raising his right arm to answer it, dropping it, pacing away.  Repeat.

Repeat.

Steve knocks again.

Repeat.

Over the com, Tony hears, “Bucky?  Buck, It’s Steve Rogers.  Please answer the door.”

Over to the door; almost answer; walk away again.

Repeat.

“Bucky, I know you’re in there.  I can hear you moving over the wood floors.  Please, answer the door.”

Over to the door; almost answer; walk away again.

“Please, Bucky,” Steve begs, softer now.  “Please.”

Over to the door.  

Almost answer.

Hesitate.

_Hesitate._

“I’m your friend.”

Walk away.

Walk back.

“Please.”  Steve’s voice is so soft it’s almost a whisper.

_Hesitate._

Barnes almost answers the door; his hand raises, moves towards the knob…

“I want to help you,” Steve pleads.

Barnes opens the door, and Steve staggers through like a dying man.

They’re hugging, infrared forms wrapping around each other, and Tony will deny, to his dying day, no matter who asks, that he is crying right now.

(He’d feel unmanly, but he’s pretty sure Natasha just sniffled in his com, too.)

“Oh, _God,”_ Steve says, voice totally swamped with emotion.  

And, “Bucky.

 _“Bucky._ Oh, God, what did they do to you?”

And then, paralyzingly, he hears, _“Tony!”_

“What?  What is it, Steve, what do you need?”  Barnes isn’t doing anything threatening; in fact, on the infrared, it looks like the opposite.   _Clinging onto Cap like a limpet_ is the phrase that comes to mind.  From here, Tony can see that Barnes doesn’t even have his feet under him any more; he’s wrapped both legs around Steve’s waist, his face buried in Steve’s neck.

“Tony, you’ve gotta tell me what to do,” Steve begs, and his voice is lost, bewildered, totally at sea.  Tony has FRIDAY scanning the vocal registers and the images, but she’s not seeing anything amiss, either, beyond the panic in Cap’s tone.

“Why?  What’s going on, Steve?”

“What’s wrong?”  Natasha’s voice, the first time she’s talking on the coms for this mission, is just as sharp as Tony’s, just as worried.

“Tony…” Steve says, his voice skipping up half an octave in the middle of the name, “...Tell me what you want me to do, here.”  And then, just before Tony can open his mouth to ask what Steve means, he answers him:

“He’s going into _Heat.”_

 

**Author's Note:**

> I added a sequel! [A Man Chooses](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7400125), for a link, or you can click that little arrow next to the series name. (Sequel title from _Bioshock,_ an absolutely fantastic scene invoking brainwashing and self-determination. "A man chooses, a slave obeys." And then your character has to obey. _Bioshock:_ the videogame I use to prove that videogames are art.)


End file.
